Hardware in Christchurch
Hardware Meetup New Zealand Goes South
Hardware Meetup New Zealand reached an exciting milestone in Christchurch, hosting our first event outside of Auckland — and what a way to do it. With a sold-out room, strong local representation, and speakers building world-class hardware companies from Aotearoa, the night reinforced a simple truth: New Zealand’s hardware ecosystem is national, not regional.
Hosted in the beautifully restored Engineering School at the Christchurch Arts Centre, the evening brought together founders, engineers, manufacturers, and operators working across energy, electronics, medtech, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing.
Welcome & Opening Remarks
The event opened with Mikayla Stokes, host of Hardware Meetup NZ, who welcomed attendees and acknowledged the significance of the Christchurch meetup as the first step in expanding the community beyond Auckland.
Running since 2016, Hardware Meetup NZ exists to bring people together to showcase ambitious hardware companies, share hard-won lessons, and strengthen the ecosystem that supports them. Seeing such a strong turnout — including attendees who had travelled from Auckland — was a powerful signal of the appetite for hardware-focused events in the South Island
The evening continued with short introductions from the sponsors who made the event possible, each representing a different layer of the hardware value chain.
Outset Ventures shared its role as a home for deep-tech companies, combining specialised facilities, venture capital, and community.
GPC Electronics spoke about large-scale electronics manufacturing across New Zealand, Australia, and offshore.
Intranel showcased the breadth of projects they work on — from medical devices to robotics for the International Space Station.
Dassault Systèmes highlighted how access to professional-grade tools like SolidWorks, CATIA, and additive manufacturing supports startups from early development through to scale.
Together, the sponsors reflected the collaborative, cross-disciplinary nature of the hardware ecosystem.
Brendon Hale — Basis
Brendon Hale opened the speaker sessions by outlining Basis’ vision: an electrified world powered by clean energy. His talk explored why existing residential electrical infrastructure hasn’t meaningfully evolved in decades — and how that limits safety, insight, and energy optimisation.
Brendon walked through Basis’ smart panel approach, combining sensors, software, and modern hardware design to replace traditional switchboards. A key theme was designing for installers — making life easier for electricians through faster installation, safer connections, and configurable systems — while also unlocking data that can drive better energy behaviour.
He also shared the realities of building deep-tech hardware: long development cycles, compliance hurdles, the need for close collaboration with early customers, and the importance of strong relationships across the ecosystem. As he put it plainly: hardware is hard — but worth it
Daniel Milligan — Syft Technologies
Daniel Milligan followed with the story of Syft Technologies, a Christchurch-based company that has spent more than two decades turning advanced scientific research into globally deployed instrumentation.
Spun out of the University of Canterbury, Syft builds mass-spectrometry-based systems capable of detecting parts-per-trillion chemical concentrations in real time. Daniel explained how this technology is used across semiconductor fabrication, environmental monitoring, container safety, pharmaceuticals, and more — often in applications where no alternative solution exists.
His talk highlighted the long arc from academic research to commercial product, the importance of solving real, economically meaningful problems, and the challenge of integrating mechanical engineering, electronics, software, and chemistry into a single reliable system. Syft’s journey illustrated how patient, technically rigorous hardware companies can build enduring global businesses from New Zealand
Jason Orchard — Evnex
The final speaker of the night, Jason Orchard, shared Evnex’s journey building electric vehicle charging infrastructure — proudly designed and assembled in Christchurch.
Jason walked through Evnex’s product evolution, from early prototypes to scalable manufacturing lines capable of producing a fully tested charger in minutes. He highlighted the dual challenge of hardware startups: product design and manufacturability must evolve together.
Looking ahead, Jason discussed the future of EV charging — including bidirectional charging, vehicle-to-grid concepts, and the complexities of expanding into Australia’s fragmented regulatory landscape. His talk reinforced how energy, hardware, and software are increasingly intertwined
Closing Reflections
Mikayla closed the evening by thanking the speakers, sponsors, and attendees, and reflecting on what the Christchurch event represented: a clear signal that New Zealand’s hardware ecosystem is thriving well beyond Auckland.
This first Christchurch Hardware Meetup marked the beginning of a broader national presence — and set a strong foundation for future events across Aotearoa.
Interested in speaking, sponsoring, or attending a future Hardware Meetup New Zealand event? Stay tuned for upcoming events around the country.
Speakers
Speaker 1: Brendon Hale from Basis
Brendon joined Basis as its first technical team member during the COVID lockdown, when the company was still in its exploratory and feasibility stages. As CTO, he led the development of the engineering capabilities from the ground up, building the foundations necessary to innovate while navigating the challenges of creating safety-critical, regulated products. Now, as Head of Research and Technology, Brendon is focused on driving the enablers of future growth and expansion.
Speaker 2: Jason Orchard from Evnex
Jason Orchard is the Head of Engineering at Evnex. He is passionate about product development, enjoys working with teams that are dedicated to solving challenging problems, and thrives on seeing the positive impact their hard work has on communities. His interest in technology began at a young age, always eager to discover how things work under the hood. This curiosity has led him to work in various industries, including medical devices, scientific instrumentation, and now e-mobility.
Speaker 3: Daniel Milligan from Syft Technologies
Dr Daniel Milligan is the CTO of Syft Technologies and started his career as a kineticist. His PhD was studying ion-molecule chemistry and SIFT-MS with Professor McEwan, after which he did a post-doctoral fellowship at Cal Tech / NASA / JPL in Pasadena, California. He returned to SIFT-MS and Syft via a University of Canterbury postdoctoral fellowship in 2003.
Daniel's interests have always centered around instrumentation and he now heads the Development and Engineering efforts of Syft. His path to this role has not always been direct, however, going by way of applications development, support, and a stint as VP of Technology for Syft in Cleveland, Ohio.
MC: Mikayla Stokes
Mikayla Stokes is a mechatronics engineer at Crown Equipment making autonomous forklifts. She loves using tech to make cool wearable things like a light-up dress or 3D printed earrings. She's passionate about creating an inclusive community where any kid can pursue a future in STEM, and is the two time overall female winner of the BrightSparks inventing competition.
Event Sponsors
GPC Electronics
GPC Electronics, is Australasia's largest contract electronics manufacturers, specializing in a wide range of sectors including Industrial Controls, Power Electronics, Aerospace, Medical and Defence. GPC Electronics provides comprehensive services from design and prototyping to full-scale production and testing, leveraging advanced technologies to deliver high-quality electronic solutions globally.
Outset Ventures
Outset Ventures are committed to empowering overlooked science and engineering innovators to transform their ideas into groundbreaking ventures, helping them succeed at the critical early stages. As New Zealand's center of gravity for science and engineering startups and scaleups, Outset is home to a community of 40+ founder-led companies, 5000 square meters of laboratory and workshop spaces, and the country's most active deep technology investment fund.
Dassault Systèmes
Dassault Systèmes provides business and people with 3DEXPERIENCE universes to imagine sustainable innovations capable of harmonizing product, nature and life. Their SOLIDWORKS & 3DEXPERIENCE Works are mastered by 7.5 Million engineers and designers worldwide. SOLIDWORKS Startup Program does two incredible things to help accelerate growth of early stage hardware companies. First, we remove barriers by providing access to world-class design and collaboration software. Second, we nurture an ecosystem which understand the difficult challenges of launching innovative hardware products.
Intranel
Intranel provides services to accelerate technology projects covering a full range of emerging tech, including hardware design, LLMs, AI/ML, computer vision, mobile and web app development, and cloud services. Intranel works with start-ups to multi-nationals, with a particular strength in developing tech to support R&D projects. Recent projects include an AI assisted medical ultrasound imaging device, pathogen detection using computer vision, a nano-particle isolation device, and robotics and software for controlling biochemical experiments on the ISS.
Venues
Christchurch
The Health Technology Centre at Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre is a co-working space for a cluster of health technology companies and the wider community to work from a unique and collaborative environment.
Queenstown
Wildtech is made up of Queenstown hardware designers with a special focus on Adventure companies. The Workshop combines a shared office, with a workshop (benches, tools, 3D printers, etc) and event space.
Invercargill
COIN South is an innovation agency that helps businesses innovate and work with many engineering businesses. COIN has its own office space, which includes event space, shared offices, etc., in Invercargill.