High tech capital promoted at top tech event in Sydney

2 May 2014

High tech capital promoted at top tech event in Sydney

Grow Wellington is heading across the ditch next week to spearhead a Wellington presence at Sydney’s CeBit Technology Event, the number one business technology event in the Asia Pacific region.

Five Wellington ICT companies – Jig Lab, Posboss, Rabid, Smart Show and WatchMyGear – have partnered with Grow Wellington to be ambassadors for the high tech capital at the annual event, which attracts over 30,000 people from Australia and beyond. CeBIT is on from 5 to 7 May.

The initiative is part of the Destination Wellington programme funded by Wellington City Council and delivered in partnership with Grow Wellington and Positively Wellington, which aims to attract business, talent and investment to the Wellington region.

Melissa Davies, Grow Wellington’s General Manager for Business Attraction, says, "We will be telling the Wellington business story to key decision makers in Australian ICT businesses in the hope of attracting more business, investment and talent to the capital”.

“Wellington is a hub of innovation and technology, with a real culture of collaboration,” says Ms Davies. “It’s also 20 percent more cost effective to run a business here compared to other global cities.”

Wellington City Councillor Jo Coughlan, who chairs the Council’s Economic Growth and Arts Committee says it is absolutely vital that Wellington is represented at such a significant global tech event. “Wellington has New Zealand’s largest number of fastest growing high tech companies. Telling this high tech capital story at CeBIT is a great way to promote Wellington as fantastic place to live, work and do business.”

A targeted advertising campaign promoting Wellington will appear in Australian print and online media around the same time as CeBIT. Grow Wellington will also be hosting networking functions and a dinner event targeting Australian ICT decision makers. Visual effects whiz and co-founder of Jig Lab, Sebastian Marino, will be a guest speaker at the event.

Grow Wellington’s exhibit at CeBit will feature a giant digital wall display in the shape of an iPhone showcasing work by Wellington businesses including a show reel by Weta Digital.

Also screened will be the prize-winning video ‘Little Wellington’ by Michael Jooss. The tilt-shifted time-lapse shows the best of the city and was produced by the German film intern while at Wellington’s Videoworks, winning him a prize in a Ranke-Heinemann Institute competition in 2013.

Further background information
Wellington is making its mark internationally with the region having 16 out of a total of 40 New Zealand companies on the 2013 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific index. The index ranks the top 500 technology businesses according to their revenue growth over the past three years and sets the standard for high growth technology businesses in the Asia Pacific region. The Wellington region has four companies in the top 100; Alphero leads the Wellington businesses at 22nd place with a growth rate of 1118% for the period; GreenButton is at 24, ENZEC at 69 and OrbitRemit is at 81. Other Wellington companies on the index are; OptimalBI (101), Xero (104), Snipesoft (122), BigEars (143), Psoda (206), Freeman Media (212), Carnival Labs (288), Optimal Product (290), Times-7 Research (343), TOUCH/CAST (345), Trio Software (397) and Seekom (474).

Wellington businesses feature prominently in the TIN 100 Report which measures the performance of New Zealand’s largest export-focused technology companies. In fact in 2013 more than half of the entire revenue growth of the TIN100 across the country came from the Wellington region with the Wellington TIN 100 companies growing close to three times faster than any other region.

Grow Wellington
Grow Wellington is the economic development agency that works to accelerate economic growth in the Wellington region and make it more internationally competitive.

ENDS

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