Become world leading, through AI activation

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Celebrating Taranaki

Who knew a Tuesday evening in New Plymouth would be so fruitful?

In May 2022 we released our AI for Environment Report, which is essentially a stock take of AI being used primarily for environmental purposes in NZ. The research pointed to two key things: The first is that the use of AI in Aotearoa is still very much in a nascent state, but where it is active, both inside and outside the lab environment, we are world leading. Secondly, the research pointed to Taranaki leading the nation in practical applications of AI in the field.

However, after 2 years of covid restrictions, everyone including the AI Forum has struggled to remain connected in person – and especially to regional NZ. Hence reconnecting somewhere like New Plymouth was always going to be a bit of a gamble – would anyone turn up? And would they be interested in what we have to say?

We needn’t have worried, it was well worth the risk – the audience were both interested and engaged – and keen to progress the conversation in Taranaki further. It bodes well for our fellow NZTech organisations like BioTech and AgriTech who both have events coming up in Taranaki.

The number of people who now work remotely from places like Taranaki emboldens us to engage on the ground more in other regional areas, and more than that, it re-enforces our commitment to coming back to New Plymouth to do more, promote more and engage more.

Natural intelligence
Is biomimicry the next generation of AI? Early last month I spoke with David Rajan, CEO of Opteran who thinks they might have just cracked it – this is the first in our new regular webinar series.

AI Forum Executive Council elections and AGM
On 26 October electronic voting begins for the open positions on our Executive Council. Successful candidates will be announced at our AGM in November. I encourage you to get involved, get voting and come along to see our year in review. 

Ngā mihi mahana
Madeline