ThinkTech Kāpiti
20 May | Techweek 2026
ThinkTech Kāpiti is back for TechWeek 2026
Global perspectives. Practical insights. Regional opportunity.
ThinkTech Kāpiti is the district’s flagship tech and innovation event, bringing together founders, business leaders, investors, professionals and emerging talent for a day of insight and connection.
Across the programme, speakers will cover how technology is being applied across industries including AI, infrastructure, game development, agritech and aerospace, alongside perspectives from those building and scaling businesses in New Zealand and internationally.
The focus is not just on ideas, but on what these shifts mean in practice, for businesses, for jobs, and for regions like Kāpiti.
Key speakers include Anna Kominik (aerospace), Dr Sandhya Sriram (Sprout Agritech), Dave Moskowitz (Global Entrepreneurship Network), Joy Keene (GDANZ), and a mix of local founders, advisors and industry leaders.
Workshops are included as part of the day, covering practical areas such as improving marketing content using Canva’s advanced tools, and understanding how AI is changing recruitment and the job market.
This is an opportunity to hear directly from people working in these spaces, understand what’s changing, and take away ideas that can be applied in your own business.
Date
Wednesday 20 May
Venue
Te Raukura ki Kāpiti
Time
9:00am - 2:30pm
What is ThinkTech Kāpiti?
ThinkTech Kāpiti is a locally led event focused on strengthening the district’s tech and innovation sector.
It brings together a mix of national and regional perspectives with local capability, creating a space for businesses, founders and professionals to connect, share ideas and build relationships.
As technology becomes a more central part of how businesses operate, events like this provide a way to stay across what’s changing, understand how others are responding, and identify where opportunities may sit.
What's on
20 May 2026
8:30am: Registration opens
9:00am: Welcome
Session 1
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Power Play – How Aotearoa’s Game Studios Are Winning Globally with Joy Keene and Louisa Rodani, Game Developers Association of New Zealand with Kāpiti next gen founder, Kianush Rodani.
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Raising the Next Generation – What’s driving young tech founders to shape the future with Abbie McKoy, Young Enterprise Scheme with award-winning YES graduate, Cairos Akehurst, founder of Cattle Credit.
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The Global Shift – What’s Changing in Tech Markets and Why It Matters for New Zealand with Dave Moskowitz.
Morning Tea
Session 2
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Built for Orbit – How New Zealand Is Winning in the Space Economy with Anna Kominik, Dawn Aerospace.
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Powering Scale – AI, Infrastructure and the New Rules of Building Global Companies with Marcel van den Assum, Anna Kominik, Scott Houston, Dr Sandhya Sriram and Diana Minnée.
Session 3 - Conference workshops (included):
Marketing and Canva Power-Ups with Amberley Kennish, Marketing Manager
Learn how to effectively present using Canva’s advanced tools and apps to create more polished, consistent and effective marketing content for your business.
You’ll leave with:
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Knowledge on how to create high-impact core presentations you can reuse across pitches, updates, and workshops using Canva’s tools
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Practical ways to adapt your content for different channels – from investor decks to LinkedIn
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Understand the core principles of marketing to ensure your business is remembered.
Navigating the Job Market in the AI Era with Daniel Wharakura, H2R Tech
Understand how recruitment is changing, how AI is used in hiring, and what you can do to position yourself well.
You’ll leave with:
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a clearer view of where technology is heading
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practical insights you can apply straight away
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new connections across business and tech in Kāpiti
Lunch
Session 4
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From Deep Tech to Global Impact – How Innovation Is Transforming Food, Farming and Export with Dr Sandhya Sriram.
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Ideas to Impact – Building Sustainable Ecosystems That Actually Deliver with Dave Moskowitz, Marcel van den Assum and Dr Sandhya Sriram.
Proudly supported by
Kāpiti Coast District Council, Economic Development Kotahitanga Board, NewstalkZB.
Presenter Bios
Diana Minnée
Joy Keene
Diana Minnée has worked in startups and larger tech organisations such as Arcanum AI, Tapi, JRNY, Common Ledger, Silverstripe and Trade Me since 2010. She moved to Fractional COO’ing in 2019, and is now embedded in her own startup, within Astronort's main product Ask Astro, to help more businesses at scale in reducing the complexity of leveraging AI for strategic business management and decision-making.
Joy is the Executive Director of the New Zealand Game Developers Association (NZGDA), the peak body championing and growing Aotearoa's game development industry. With over 25 years of senior leadership experience in the IT Sector and a passion for education, Joy works closely with studios, government, and educators to build the pathways that bring new talent into the industry.
Under her leadership, the NZGDA has tracked extraordinary growth in the sector: 1,418 full-time jobs, $759M in revenue, and a workforce that expanded nearly 30% in a single year. Joy is a vocal advocate for education and training pipelines that keep NZ-trained talent here in Aotearoa, and for creating an industry that is welcoming to everyone.
Louisa Rodani
Louisa Rodani’s career has spanned animation, recruitment, education and government sectors and she has lived in Europe, Brazil and the Middle East but proudly calls Kāpiti home. Now on the Board of the NZGDA she is a strong advocate for supporting the growth of NZ’s Creative Tech and Game Dev industry.
Kianush Rodani
Kāpiti local, Kianush Rodani is a 17-year-old student at SIT with a growing interest in entrepreneurship. Throughout high school, he has started several small businesses and is currently running a course that explores how to use AI for financial trading. Kianush is eager to share his generations perspective on AI and emerging tech
Cairo Akehurst
Cairo Akehurst is the founder of Cattle Credit, a young agritech venture using satellite data to help track methane emissions on farms. Winner of the inaugural Prime Minister's Space Prize for Student Endeavour and recognised nationally through the Young Enterprise Scheme, Cairo is passionate about the role of technology, climate innovation and space data in shaping the future of New Zealand agriculture.
Abbie McKoy
Abbie McKoy is a passionate advocate for youth entrepreneurship and experiential learning in Aotearoa. Through her leadership with the Young Enterprise Scheme, she works alongside students, educators and business mentors to equip rangatahi with the skills, mindset and confidence to thrive in an increasingly complex and technology-driven world.
Abbie McKoy is Co-CEO at Young Enterprise, where she leads national partnerships, funding strategy, and storytelling to support over 5,000 young people each year to build real-world business skills.
Dave Moskowitz
Dave Moskovitz is a professional director and early-stage investor and takes an active role in a number of startups, with a focus on educational technology. He provides consultancy services around innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology for a variety of clients in the public and private sector and works with a number of community initiatives.
Dave is a Director of MetService, Chair of the Global Entrepreneurship Network Aotearoa New Zealand, an advisor to Growth NZ, and also advises several early-stage companies. Dave is also a member of the Christchurch Call Advisory Network, and a Trustee of Te Muka Rau.
Anna Kominik
From the offices of New Zealand Prime Ministers to the cutting edge of autonomous electric flight and supersonic aerospace, Anna Kominik has spent 25 years at the frontier of technology, of policy, and of what's possible.
An active investor and advisor to New Zealand startups, with hands-on expertise in go-to-market strategy, regulatory navigation, and market creation, Anna sits on the board of Dawn Aerospace, a New Zealand-Netherlands company building supersonic space planes, and chairs Basis, a New Zealand cleantech company behind the world's first digitally configurable smart electrical panel. She was previously a director and Asia Pacific lead at Wisk, the Larry Page and Boeing-backed Silicon Valley company pioneering autonomous, all-electric air taxis, for which she received international recognition.
Her governance experience has included Chair of the Electricity Authority, Chair of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship, Independent Chair of the Electricity Retailers Association, and Board member of the NZ-US Business Council.
Marcel van den Assum
Marcel is an angel investor who has invested in over 50 startups and is growth company director for a number of those ventures. His roles include Chairman of Sprout Agritech Ltd, the Palmerston North based agrifoodtech incubator and investor, Wipster Ltd, and Mevo Ltd.
He is a Director of NZ Growth Capital Partners, CropX (NZ), BlackCurrent and Flick Electric, and an Independent Advisory Board position with Te Whatu Ora. Marcel is immediate past Chairman of the Angel Association of NZ, founding investor in Wellington’s LightningLab accelerator, a member of AngelHQ, and a member of the NZ Institute of Directors.
Scott Houston
Scott Houston is a highly experienced entrepreneur who was CTO for “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy in New Zealand. He founded the New Zealand Supercomputer Center and a cloud orchestration company called GreenButton and led its acquisition by Microsoft in 2014.
He was a finalist in the EY Entrepreneur of the year awards and named an “Innovation Hero” by the Innovation Council. In addition to the EDKB, Scott is a board member of organisations such as ArcanumAI, Electra and Fingermark, as well as a beachheads advisor at NZTE, and works with companies seeking to harness the power of AI.
Dr Sandhya Sriram
Dr Sandhya Sriram is a globally recognised serial biotech and agrifoodtech entrepreneur, scientist and ecosystem builder. She is the CEO of Sprout Agritech, New Zealand’s leading startup accelerator and investor supporting deep-tech startups transforming the food and agriculture system.
Originally trained as a stem cell biologist, Sandhya co-founded Shiok Meats in Singapore, the world’s first cultivated crustacean company and Southeast Asia’s first cell-based seafood venture. It raised more than US$30 million from global investors and became one of the most prominent food-tech startups in Asia. She has founded multiple startups, completed successful mergers and exits and now mentors and invests in emerging food and agritech companies globally.
Sandhya has been recognised internationally as a Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst and featured in TIME and Forbes Women in Tech. She was also involved with global innovation networks including the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Food and Water Security, helping shape conversations about the future of food systems.
Amberley Kennish
Amberley Kennish is the Manager of Tourism Development and Marketing at Kāpiti Coast District Council, working across marketing, economic development, and sector strategy.
She previously founded a marketing agency, working with clients across New Zealand from early-stage startups through to large-scale campaigns, including managing near seven-figure marketing programmes and advising senior leaders on growth and brand strategy.
Amberley’s focus is on what actually creates momentum, how businesses gain traction, how sectors move, and how marketing can be used to make something land, not just exist.
In a landscape where anyone can build, her perspective centres on the real challenge: making people care. Her sessions cut through traditional marketing noise, focusing on how decisions are actually made, and how businesses can create clarity, connection, and demand.
Daniel Wharakura
Ko Taupiri tooku maunga,
ko Waikato tooku awa
ko Tainui tooku waka
ko Ngaati Mahuta tooku hapuu
ko Tuurangawaewae tooku marae.
Ko Daniel Wharakura tooku ingoa.
Daniel began his recruitment career in 2007 and now brings close to two decades of experience across global, national, and local markets. He is known for his proactive, transparent approach and his ability to build strong, trusted partnerships that consistently deliver great outcomes for both clients and candidates.
As Co-founder and Director of H2R Technology, Daniel leads a national Digital and Technology recruitment business. He brings a kaupapa Māori lens to his mahi, placing strong emphasis on connection, collaboration, and understanding organisational culture to ensure the right fit. He takes pride in sourcing, attracting, and engaging high-quality talent, while providing clients with a range of options to support informed and confident decision-making.
