Pepper Curry is the new Community Assistant at BizDojo Wellington, and is excited to be here helping out with events and streamlining day-to-day operations! She has a background in fine arts, as well as being a live performance VJ with audio-reactive programming skills. She brings with her a variety of other skills including graphic design, iOS device repair, and knitting.
Pepper was born in Auckland, but has been living in the States for the vast majority of her life, in such exotic locales as Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, and most recently…the glorious San Francisco. She’s cultivated a great working knowledge of startup culture from working with Apple retail, and also can roll a mean burrito if you’re hungry.
She has a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts, with a focus in performance art and installations. She spends her free time gardening with her partner, Peter, knitting like a boss, and working on a zine that may or may not ever get published.
Since moving to Wellington, Pepper had been looking for the right place to work, and was inspired and excited by the amazing culture of innovation and creativity in the city:
“I had been looking for a company that aligns with my desire to create alongside innovators, as well as being a part of something that was more collective and collaborative than hierarchical. BizDojo seems like the perfect place for both of these things! I am excited to be a facilitator for the creative aspect of business, and to form connections with New Zealand’s best and brightest,” Pepper says.
Need Help Getting Your Creative Business Off the Ground?
ART Venture is on the lookout for candidates for its 2013 programme. Up to 12 entrepreneurs in the creative sector will be awarded a place on the year-long programme, valued at up to $38,000, including specialist coaching and a seed fund pitching process.
Petra & Bay are Finalists at iD Dunedin Fashion Week
Remember the Facebook campaign we did last year for 10 hours of free photoshoot time on the BizDojo Co.Space Infinity Wall? In return, the winner had to splash some paint on the wall.
As keen supporters of young and emerging creatives, we chose Petra Benton & her friends as the winners to shoot lookbooks for their graduate collections.
Meet Kelly and Blair, our new interns from Boston Uni.
We’re stoked to have had some new Boston University interns join us for a few months! Kelly and Blair are filling the void in our hearts left by Jocelyn, Annie and Emily, our Boston Uni interns from last year. You girls were amazing and we still miss you every day!
Our Auckland resident Nick Barrett, founder of Imagistory, has returned from a busy trip to Shanghai. He was invited by AUT to be an alumnus member of the team representing New Zealand at the entrepreneurship competition, Hult Prize.
Last June we had a Russian software development company, Crystalnix, join our pool of international residents at the Wellington Dojo.
Crystalnix was founded in 2008 by Roman Kudiyarov and Dmitry Lyfar in Omsk, Russia.
After launching, their exceptional work was instantly picked up by several businesses worldwide. Driven by the global success, the founders felt it was time to start looking for a more internationally connected base for the company.
This is a video from the Snakk NZAX listing launch party. Max Flanigan is in the thumbnail pic of the video. He comes in the first time at 0:50.
Last week was an exciting week for Auckland BizDojo residents Max Flanigan and Rhonda McHardy from Snakk Media.
On Wednesday 6 March, Snakk Media listed on the NZAX with a bang: Shares went from an opening price of 6.5 cents to 16 cents on a handful of trades within the first two hours, and closed the week at 20 cents on good volume putting Snakk’s market capitalisation at $41.3 million.
In the past few years, Coworking Conferences have been popping up across the globe everywhere from Paris to Tokyo. The concept for these conferences was conceived in 2008 in Austin, where the biggest Global Coworking Unconference Conference (GCUC or “Juicy”) still takes place. (Read more about the background on this Deskmag article.)
The purpose of these conferences is to share learnings and discuss the future of the coworking movement regionally and globally. Last weekend’s Coworking Conference Australia, held in Melbourne, was the first one of its kind held in Australiasia.
O-Hoy! Shane Went Cruisin’ on a Google Pirate Ship
Shane O’Connell, co-founder of Hacktivate and Auckland Dojo resident, flew over to Sydney at the end of February for a two-day Google Student Ambassador Summit.
“It was an annual intensive summit where they taught us about Google products. There are sixty Google Student Ambassadors in Australasia, who all came together for the summit,” Shane explains, “In total, there are around 1,500 Student Ambassadors in the world.”
Hardhat is a design studio run by NZ and Brit duo Nik Clifford and Jenny Miles. The couple met in late 90’s while both working in London design agencies for big corporate clients.
In 2000, Nik and Jen decided it was time to do it their own way and combined their skills to form Hardhat. Today, the business has two bases, Auckland and London, with plans for a third base in New York.
“Very early on we tried to build the business to be as mobile as it could be. We even bought laptops back when laptops were astronomically expensive. We would spend summers in New York and work for British clients while we were there,” Nik says.
Last week, Nick travelled down to a workshop in Christchurch at EPIC (Enterprise Precinct and Innovation Campus) to meet up with the founders.
EPIC is a development launched by Wil McLellan and Colin Andersen. The 2500 square metre facility was designed to help rehouse the displaced tech companies in Christchurch after the September earthquake. It currently houses 20 companies with around 300 people in total.
More Nicks in the Dojo circle!? We’re going to have to start calling them Nick Bar, Nick Bai, Nick S, Nick minut.. Nevermind. Anyway, this here is Nick Barrett, our new face around the Ironbank. He has based himself in the Auckland Dojo to work on his start-up, Imagistory.
“I feel fortunate to be able to kickstart my business with the connections and support from the Dojo community,” he says.
Darrin is based in the Auckland Dojo, and is the founder and principal consultant of new-clarity.
New-clarity is a consulting company focusing on building smarter businesses. The name stems from Darrin’s focus on bringing clarity into business strategy and structure. New-clarity challenges you to think about what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and why you’re doing it. It’s about stopping for a minute to evaluate your behaviour as a business, and seeing where there’s room for improvement.
Last June we had a Russian software development company, Crystalnix, join our pool of international residents at the Wellington Dojo.
Crystalnix was founded in 2008 by Roman Kudiyarov and Dmitry Lyfar in Omsk, Russia.
After launching, their exceptional work was instantly picked up by several businesses worldwide. Driven by the global success, the founders felt it was time to start looking for a more internationally connected base for the company.