OUR
COMMUNITY
We have a community of industry representatives from a variety of companies and organisations. Meet the members and co-locators currently enjoying the collaborative workspaces and hot desking opportunities available at NIP.
Our network of industry collaborators co-host events and meet-ups on site with us at both our University of Auckland City and Newmarket Campuses.

CURRENT
COLLABORATORS

Opo Bio | Laura Domigan, Vaughan Feisst, Olivia Ogilvie and Team
Opo Bio is an early-stage deep tech company leading research and development of livestock cell cultures. They develop and sell primary cell products, cell lines and companion products for use in cellular agriculture, specifically cultivated meat production. Harnessing synthetic biology and the power of cells is central to achieving a low-carbon, high quality circular economy. We are Aotearoa’s next-generation molecular farming company, our long-term vision is to have cell production platforms for food production, materials engineering, functional biology (cosmetics and nutraceuticals), and therapeutics.

Vortex Power Systems | Perzaan Mehta, Billy Bowman and Neil Hawkes
Vortex Power Systems was founded on the vision of converting low grade waste heat into clean electricity by generating and harnessing the power of an atmospheric vortex. With origins from research undertaken by Professor Richard Flay and Neil Hawkes at the University of Auckland, the company developed and built a proprietary testing rig at the University of Auckland’s aerodynamics lab. They are now focused on designing and building their first in-field demonstration unit which will enable them to create full scale vortices to prove the technology’s commercial potential and assist in the development of their first electricity generating pilot plant.

Opum | Paul Mallinson & Team
OPUM was founded out of the “Medical Devices and Technologies” Research Group at the University of Auckland, a team consisting of over 20 researchers. We are world-leading experts in wearable robotics, medical devices, sensors, clinical research, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Digital Knee offers the most complete set of indications for knee health, the culmination of 10 years of applied research. OPUM is grounded in translational R&D, tackling complex clinical problems from the perspective of the triple healthcare aim: better patient experience of care and population health at a reduced per-capita cost.

Avertana | James Obern, Brandon Swanepoel
Avertana is a process technology developer focused on circular economy solutions. Our proprietary technology refines industrial waste streams into a suite of valuable mineral and chemical products using innovative chemistry, advanced materials, and novel process design. Avertana’s process offers lowest-in-industry manufacturing cost, with a far smaller environmental footprint than traditional pathways. Starting with titanium-bearing slag from steelmaking, our process transforms this low-value byproduct entirely into saleable commodities, with no residual waste and much lower CO2 emissions. We help our customers (and their customers) to build more sustainable, resilient supply chains by making essential raw materials with far less cost and environmental impact. Avertana’s process creates inputs to everyday products such as paint, building materials, paper, and fertilisers. Avertana’s circular economy technology helps industry to reduce its environmental footprint competitively.

Acumino | Geng Gao
Next Generation Training Platform for Robots We offer a state-of-the-art training platform that enables robot makers and robot users to perform tasks never before possible, revolutionizing the capabilities of robotic systems across multiple industries. Our groundbreaking platform empowers everyday users and workers to easily train and pretrain robotic actions, significantly enhancing the range of tasks robots can perform. It helps robots to work more effectively and safely alongside humans in various sectors, including logistics, healthcare, agriculture, and households. Acumino’s intuitive platform is compatible with most robots and also seamlessly integrates with Large Language Models (like ChatGPT). This allows robots to perform dexterous, two-handed work in complex real-world settings faster than ever thought possible.

Ubiquetherm | John Arabshahi, Adrian Dorrington, Andrew Su
Ubiquetherm is a start-up in renewable energy semiconductor manufacturing. Delivering a sustainable planet, by using NanoTech to create warmer and cooler environments for homes and industry. Pioneering next-gen heating & cooling technology and driving growth & innovation in metamaterials.

Marvle3D | Changzhou Yu
Marvle3D is New Zealand’s leading 3D printing store, owned and run by Changzhou. As a “crazy fan of science and technology”, Changzhou is passionate about using technologies to make our life smarter and more sustainable. NIP provides him with the opportunity to meet mind-like entrepreneurs and connect with university experts on novel 3D printing materials and technologies.

Douglas Nutrition | Roger Gower
Douglas Nutrition has a long heritage in high quality pharmaceutical manufacture and Mother and Baby nutrition, with foundations in Douglas Pharmaceuticals, the largest private pharmaceutical company in New Zealand.
Douglas Nutrition manufactures and markets 2 brands of supplements: Puria focused upon mothers and babies and Altrix with a focus on older people with dietary issues. The company is undertaking ongoing research partnering with universities and the food industry.
Roger Gower describes their relationship with NIP as perfect for a small, growth-oriented business that can benefit from having an office space with close access to potential research partners, facilities, and expertise.

Imersia Tech | Jonathan Lowther and Roy Davies
Consolidated with half a decade of cutting-edge client work, the team at Imersia knows how to make Mixed Reality highly compelling.
Imersia Tech sees the future of augmented, mixed and virtual reality technology bringing people together to create shared experiences. The team has been working with the technology for decades and have some exciting new ventures to develop in collaboration with the university.

IMS-Projects | Adrian Packer and Mehdi Shahbazpour
Lean and innovation consultants helping kiwis take a systems approach to building innovative and productive organisations. Companies working with IMS-Projects may be eligible for co-funding support from NZTE and Callaghan Innovation, through programmes such as Better by Lean, Digital Lean, and Driving Innovation. Their current focus lies with digitisation and industry 4.0 strategies.

TechTALK Ltd and PlatformPi | Masoud Shakiba
TechTALK NZ was founded in 2018. Supported by a group of volunteers, he creates a powerful environment for the academic community to meet the IT industry and bridge education with employment. TechTALK provides a platform for everyone interested in Tech to share and learn about innovative technologies. At TechTALK, we aspire to help to close the STEAM skill shortage gap.
PlatformPi aims to simplify and enhance education-industry collaboration and engagement. PlatformPi provides a medium like no other where students can find opportunities and learn lifelong skills through two approaches – Project Based Learning and Internship Based Learning. We help connect a diverse range of employers to students from our large talent pool so that both can benefit in this rapidly growing industry.

Dennisson Tech | Anvil and Kimberley Banez
Dennisson Technologies was founded to bridge the adoption gap of assistive orthotic solutions by designing new and innovative assistive wearable technologies. We intend to enable better access through affordability, improving the quality of life and comfort of those who need it most. We are a wearable device company using smart material technology to develop low profile, and cost-effective Force-Feedback Platforms for Virtual Reality and Human Capability Augmentation.

Hydroxsys | Dylan Gifford and Kariappa Karumbaiah
Founded by engineers and scientists, Hydroxsys is a privately-owned New Zealand company with headquarters, manufacturing, and research and development facilities in Auckland. A kiwi clean tech company leading the way in sustainable wastewater management and recycling, Hydroxsys engineers deliver bespoke membrane filtration solutions for diverse wastewater challenges in a range of industries

Electroteks NZ | Rajith Abeywardana and Dulsha Kularatna-Abeywardana
Electroteks NZ takes pride in designing supercapacitor based power supply solutions for various applications such as solar power, fast charging, IoT, wearable devices and many others. The team specialises in designing customised electronic solutions based on client needs, especially in the power and energy storage domain. The team has combined expertise in power electronics, energy storage, wireless power transfer and wireless communication. Feel free to reach out if you have an electronics project waiting to be implemented!

David Claridge | Business and Innovation Advisor
David works with Auckland inventors and technology ventures/companies to commercialise their ideas by assessing commercial and technical feasibility. This includes accessing both Callaghan Innovation resources (including intercompany Networks, Skills Programs, and R&D co-funding) and university and industry areas of expertise, both technical and commercial. David runs free business innovation clinics with NIP
https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidclaridgeinnovation/?originalSubdomain=nz

PDMA-NZ | Kai Roever and William Fisher
The Product Development and Management Association of New Zealand (PDMA-NZ) is the New Zealand Affiliate of a global organisation committed to enhancing innovation and product development. They provide a network for product development professionals to learn, share and find new opportunities and are committed to supporting the growth of sustainable product innovation across New Zealand.

IoT Auckland Meetup
IOT Auckland is open to anyone with an interest in Internet of Things applications. We inspire, inform and connect through regular meetups, conferences, workshops and hackathons. This group helps you achieve success faster and better, by connecting you with people and businesses that have been on the same journey and have knowledge and experience to share.

Globex Engineering | Craig Shannon
Globex is a product engineering company that designs hardware products for companies and start-ups. Craig is all about balancing requirements, time, risk, quality, and cost to help companies develop amazing products for NZ companies to take to the world. Craig is interested in meeting people he can help with Product issues, design issues, or design process questions.

Ideas at Work | Karl Schodt
Unleash the magic of holography and fogscreen with New Zealand and Australia’s most experienced provider. Immerse yourself in the latest and greatest holographic equipment and experience the awe-inspiring power of walk-through projection screens. Transform your trade shows and events with technology that’s out of this world. Teleport your speaker from anywhere in the world straight onto the stage in real-time and leave your audience mesmerised with interactive communication.

Humble Bee Bio | Bhuvana Kannan
Humble Bee Bio is an award-winning biotechnology company based in Aotearoa, New Zealand, that was founded to positively impact the world and build value by combining biomimicry and the power of synthetic biology. Globally, chemicals that are known hormone disruptors and carcinogens are used in consumer products at vast scales. Finally, regulation is converging with the advancement of Humble Bee Bio’s unique, patent-pending platform protein and massive advances in bioinformatics, precision fermentation, and Machine Learning. We have identified a novel, patent-pending protein with a suite of commercially valuable properties across multiple industries. Humble Bee Bio is creating novel biomaterials that solve market problems and improve global environmental health.

KeenTech | Zagros Soltanian
Keen Tech provides team as a services, custom software development, blockchain technologies & internet of things (IoT). Our software engineers build tailored solutions for startups, mid-sized organisations, and large corporations.

Vertus Energy | Li Xu, Julienne Vivero
Vertus technology is a power-to-X platform that uses biocatalysts to control the electrosynthesis of valuable chemicals – Biogas, Biomethane, DME, methanol, etc.- from a range of waste streams. The beginning of the Proof of concept has passed about 6 years, moving from 1L to 20L, now to 140L in our laboratory in Parnell, and next year we expect to deliver the first pilot plant in Europe and establish a new experimental base, hoping that one day our technology can serve the international energy industry.

C WHY International Ltd | Christine Yip
C WHY International Ltd is a New Zealand enterprise management consultant and executive training service provider, aiming at improving corporate decision-making efficiency, increasing operating profit and international market competitiveness. The service coverage includes executive project management, Lean operation process, digital transformation strategy and business cultures consulting. C WHY International Ltd takes traditional oriental wisdom as its core, helping enterprises follow effective management improvement strategies and quickly achieve growth goals.

Omexom | Nick Jaques
Electrix, trading as Omexom New Zealand, is a leading provider of engineering, construction and maintenance services to asset owners in the utility, industrial, commercial, resources, and infrastructure sectors.
FORMER
MEMBERS
Easy Crypto | Janine Grainger
UoA connections: Gerald Kwazu
Easy Crypto was the first company in New Zealand to create a platform for the purchase, sale, and trade of cryptocurrency. Employees of Easy Crypto have the freedom to work remotely all around New Zealand, but great ideas and great things happen when people get together. NIP offers just the space we are looking for to bring our people together, offering us an opportunity to connect with other companies with similar goals and interests.
Ficomms | Sean Rainthorpe
UoA connections: Rajnish Sharma, Zoran Salcic
Ficomms was developing a family of electronic devices for maintenance and fault finding in optical fibre micro ducts. There were multiple opportunities for collaborative, fully or co-funded R&D projects. Co-location at NIP allowed UoA to help nurture a startup set to bring disruptive innovation to the fibre installation market, bringing technical expertise to bear on challenges and facilitate project development.
Memory | Russell Haines
UoA connections: NZ Product Accelerator, CACM, RCSMS. CAI
Memory is an award-winning innovation agency with studios in Beijing & Auckland, working with innovation led organizations to design and develop future focused products. Russell, Founder and Design Director, currently bases himself out of NIP once a week to better connect with academic experts in the fields of biocomposites and biomaterials.
Invoke AR | Geoffrey Zink, Charles Bridger and Akram Darwaze
UoA connections: Nasser Giacaman, Vicente Gonzalez, Kent Lee, Uwe Rieger, Yinan Liu
Invoke develops virtual and augmented reality devices to make these technologies more accessible and intuitive to use. Invoke naturally relies on innovation through R&D. Relationships with organisations like NIP give the team the ability to collaborate more easily with researchers at the university.
Craft Media Workshop | Lyn Collie
UoA connections: Business School, NIP community
Content-producer, educator and screenwriter, Lyn is currently director of Craft Media Workshop, a boutique web design and content company specialising in hand-crafted solutions. “I’m all about connecting customers and audiences with businesses and ideas!” Lyn joined the NIP community to reconnect with the university, enjoy the company of other freelance consultants and help build the NIP community.
Hilti (NZ) Ltd | Jerry Ma, Ahmed Kamuna, Tara Hardie
UoA connections: Enrique del ray Castillo, Quincey Ma, Charles Clifton, Rick Henry, Lucas Hogan, Jon Culley, Business School
Hilti designs and produces leading edge technology and software products and invests significantly each year in research and development. Hilti connected with NIP to better enable extended opportunities for industry and academic networking and to seek further research in the development of codes & standards for the sector in NZ. While no longer members of the precinct, they continue to pursue top student talent acquisition through recruitment activities with relevant faculties.
NICKTHREESIXTY | Nick Jaques
UoA connections: Nick Reilly
Nick Jaques is a consultant working under the name NICKTHREESIXTY. His role sees him help businesses encourage creativity in their employees, and find the value of becoming more comfortable with failure.
David Huang (consultant)
UoA connections: Grant Covic, Jackman Lin, Seho Kim
David is an innovative R&D Engineer at Qualcomm Halo with over 14 years of experience in Inductive power transfer and Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging. His areas of expertise include System Design, Power Electronics and technology transfer, and supporting Licensees in new product development. Via his membership at NIP, David connects with our university IPT experts on a project basis.
Hyperion Technologies (NZ) Ltd | Stefan Powell
UoA connections: Jim Hefkey, Rajnish Sharma, Kean Aw
Hyperion Technologies (NL) was establishing a NZ subsidiary tasked with the development of the Hyperion CubeSat propulsion system from the current prototype to a commercial product. The combination of office space and potential access to the workshop and associated expertise, plus ready access to master and PhD students made NIP a great foundation location from which Hyperion could grow in NZ.
Explore Mine | Adina Coomber
UoA connections: Vicente Gonzalez, Yuqian Lu, Transport Group
As a contractor and consultant Adina is currently based in Melbourne in a role with Siemens Gamesa. Adina connects with NIP to continue to grow her NZ start-up company Explore Mine, a custom, multi-dimensional content sharing platform combined with way-finding and location activation via Augmented Reality. Looking to take advantage of the post-graduate talent emerging from the Faculty of Engineering to further her project in the short-term, Adina also recognises the future potential of The University’s academic expertise and research activities in the area of machine learning.