YKIA Auckland (at Zuru)
Zuru Auckland HQ, Building A, Level 4, 167 Victoria Street West, Auckland CBD
5:30 - 7:30 PM
Connecting young AI builders across Tāmaki Makaurau at Zuru’s Auckland HQ. Free to attend.
Register on LumaEvents
AI Events and Meetups Across New Zealand
Young Kiwis in AI runs free events for students, graduates and early-career people building with artificial intelligence in Aotearoa. There are three kinds: in-person meetups in cities around the country, a monthly online catchup on Discord that anyone in New Zealand can get to, and our national conference.
We have already run events in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton and Palmerston North, and the meetups keep rolling out to new cities. Everything below is free to attend and open to anyone young and keen. You do not need a computer science degree, a job in AI, or an invitation from a member.
Upcoming events
These are the events with a date locked in. In-person meetups take registrations through Luma so we know how many people to expect, and spaces are limited by the venue. The conference is far enough out that there is a waitlist rather than a ticket, and everyone on it hears when registration opens.
Flagship event
YKIA National Conference 2027
Novotel Auckland Airport
8:30 AM - 5:00 PM
New Zealand’s first national conference for young Kiwis in AI. A full day of keynotes, panels, a hands-on workshop, demos, awards and networking.
Join the waitlistThe monthly online catchup
Most of New Zealand does not live within driving distance of a meetup, so the online catchup is the event everyone can make. It runs on Discord on the last Monday of every month at 5:30 PM NZ time, and it is the most reliable way to meet the rest of the community.
The format is deliberately low effort. There is no dress code, no ticket and no expectation that you have anything impressive to show. A typical session has a couple of member spotlights, where someone talks through what they are building, how they got into it and what they would do differently, followed by open discussion. If you would rather listen for your first one, that is completely normal.
We write the sessions up afterwards so nothing is lost if you cannot make it live:
Every last Monday
Monthly Online AI Catchup
Discord
5:30 PM NZST
A relaxed online catch-up to share what you’re building, swap ideas, and meet other young Kiwis working with AI.
Where we have been
Young Kiwis in AI is not a community waiting for its first event. We have run meetups, talks and pitch nights in 6 cities, from Tāmaki Makaurau down to Ōtepoti, and the photos below are all from our own events. If you are weighing up whether it is worth the trip, this is what you would have walked into.
Not every one of them has been a standard meetup. Ōtautahi has hosted both a community evening, Graduated into a World of AI, and a SaaSathon pitch night where teams presented on stage. Palmerston North ran talks followed by networking for around 30 people, and about 20 came along in Ōtepoti. What stays the same across all of them is the mix in the room: students, people a year or two into their first job, and founders building something on the side.
Auckland Meetup
Auckland / Tāmaki Makaurau
Auckland
Our largest community. Auckland has hosted meetups and is where the 2027 national conference will be held.
Photos from AucklandWellington / Te Whanganui-a-Tara
Wellington
Wellington brings together students, public sector technologists and startup builders working with AI.
Graduated into a World of AI
Christchurch / Ōtautahi
Canterbury
Christchurch has hosted both meetups and pitch nights, including the SaaSathon pitch event.
Photos from Christchurch
Dunedin Meetup
Dunedin / Ōtepoti
Otago
20 people at our last meetup
A strong student community, with meetups drawing people from across the university.
Photos from Dunedin
Hamilton Meetup
Hamilton / Kirikiriroa
Waikato
Hamilton has hosted meetups bringing together students and early-career builders across the Waikato.
Photos from Hamilton
Talks at the Palmerston North Meetup
Palmerston North / Te Papaioea
Manawatū-Whanganui
30 people at our last meetup
Palmerston North has hosted talks and networking evenings for the Manawatū community.
Photos from Palmerston NorthReturn visits in planning
We are working on the next round in Wellington and Christchurch. Dates and venues are not confirmed yet, so we have deliberately left them off the calendar above rather than putting up a date we might have to move. Members hear first.
Cities we are coming to
These are cities we have not run an event in yet. They are not scheduled and we are not going to pretend otherwise by putting a fake date on them. Where we go next depends on how many people in a region put their hand up, so if you are in one of these, registering your interest is the single most useful thing you can do. It takes about thirty seconds and it is free.
Date TBC
Tauranga Meetup
Tauranga
Bringing the community to the Bay of Plenty for the first time. Register your interest and we will let you know once a date is set.
Register your interest in TaurangaDate TBC
Napier-Hastings Meetup
Napier-Hastings
A first meetup for AI builders in Hawke’s Bay. Register your interest and we will let you know once a date is set.
Register your interest in Napier-HastingsDate TBC
New Plymouth Meetup
New Plymouth
A first meetup for the Taranaki AI community. Register your interest and we will let you know once a date is set.
Register your interest in New PlymouthDate TBC
Nelson Meetup
Nelson
A first meetup for Nelson-Tasman. Register your interest and we will let you know once a date is set.
Register your interest in NelsonWhat our events are like
The format
An in-person meetup runs for about two hours on a weekday evening, usually from 5:30 PM so people can come straight from work or lectures. The shape is simple: arrive and grab food, two or three short talks or member spotlights, then a good chunk of unstructured time to actually talk to people. Talks are practical rather than academic. Someone demoing the thing they shipped last month, and being honest about what broke, is worth more to this crowd than a survey of the literature.
Online catchups are shorter and looser, and pitch nights such as the SaaSathon in Ōtautahi run to their own format, with teams presenting from a stage. Where a talk is recorded we put it on YouTube and write it up on the blog, so the value does not disappear with the evening.
Who turns up
Mostly university students, self-taught developers, early-career professionals and founders building AI products. Plenty of people arrive knowing nobody and having never worked in AI at all. That is the normal case, not the exception, and it is the reason we keep the talks jargon-light.
The speakers are drawn from the same community rather than flown in. Past spotlights have included an AI engineer at Trade Me, an AI integration engineer at Zuru, a graduate AI engineer at RUSH, and the founders of GrowLab Technologies, BlueHorizon AI and Stitch Systems. They are a few years ahead rather than a generation ahead, which makes the advice a lot more usable.
Coming to your first one
Almost everyone comes to their first meetup on their own, so turning up alone is the default rather than something to worry about. Bring nothing but yourself. There is no laptop requirement, no pitch to prepare and nobody keeping score of what you have built.
If you want something to open with, ask people what they are building at the moment. It is the question this community answers most happily, and it works far better than trying to explain yourself first. Come early if you can. The first fifteen minutes, before the talks start, is when it is easiest to meet people.
What it costs
Nothing. Joining Young Kiwis in AI is free and our events are free to attend. There is no membership fee, no ticket price and no student-versus-professional pricing. If an event has a cost attached it will say so plainly on the listing.
How to come to one
Fill in the join form and we will send you an invite to the Discord server. That is where events are announced first, where the registration links go up, and where you can ask a question before committing to walking into a room of strangers. For the dated meetups above you can also register directly on Luma without joining Discord first.
Every event runs under our code of conduct. If anything about an event does not sit right with you, tell us and we will deal with it. More on how the community works is on the about page and in the FAQ.
Be first to hear about the next one
New meetups are announced on Discord before they go anywhere else. Joining is free and takes a minute.