Tech Firms Poised To ‘Go Global’ at W2W

Wellington’s leading ICT network, Unlimited Potential (UP), has leapt at the chance to organise an event during this year's Global Entrepreneurship Week (November 16-22).

Last year Global Entrepreneurship Week was estimated to have reached nearly 1 billion people so UP sees it as a perfect opportunity to showcase local technology innovations internationally at its annual Wellington to the World (W2W) event, said W2W Event Manager, Paul Spence.

Aimed at strengthening the local entrepreneurial ecosystem, W2W will be held on November 17 at the Wellington Town Hall at 2pm.

“After the inaugural event last year, we found W2W was hugely popular with both the local angel investor community and entrepreneurs”, said Mr Spence. “We put technology researchers from Victoria University, local entrepreneurs and investors together in the same room and told them: you need to talk!”

Selected tech entrepreneurs made pitches about their new products and services and these were filmed and posted on a You Tube channel, resulting in hundreds of hits. One company even received a call from an investor in Boston who loved their product. “As an IT savvy network that strongly supports emerging entrepreneurs we thought it was important to make full use of social media”, he said.

W2W '09 will feature more pitches as well as presentations from influential international tech blogging celebrity Richard MacManus (ReadWriteWeb) and nanotechnology researcher and MacDiarmid Young Scientist of the Year, John Watt.

It will also launch Summer of Code, a new programme that creates summer internship opportunities for students to help initiate their careers in local technology companies.

W2W is supported by the Wellington City Council, Grow Wellington and UK Trade & Investment.

Event Details:

What: Wellington to the World
When: 2pm, Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Where: Civic Suite, Level 2, Wellington Town Hall, Wakefield Street, Wellington
Cost: Free

To register visit: http://www.up.org.nz/w2w09/