Tesla Co-Founder Ian Wright Has More Electric Ideas
A decade ago, New Zealander Ian Wright and a few tech-minded buddies got together bent on creating a fast and cool electric car. They called the company Tesla Motors. Now, Wright is…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Julian Robertson’s Legacy from Hedge Funds to NZ
Billionaire Julian Robertson is renowned on Wall Street for being a pioneer in the hedge-fund industry in the 1980s and, more recently, for being a philanthropist who is giving much of his fortune away…
Animation Tutor Oana Croitoru Wins International 3D Print Comp
Aucklander Oana Croitoru, aka “Oana Jones”, has won first prize in the MakerBot Ghostly Vinyl Challenge for her hand-cranked record player featuring a 3D printed 15 cm-cube turntable. Croitoru is a tutor at Auckland’s Animation…
Malaghan Institute Observes Extraordinary Cell Transfer
New Zealand and Australian scientists have observed DNA moving between animal cells in a breakthrough discovery that may lead to a better understanding of a range of human diseases and new gene therapies. The team…
Soundtrack Tool Booktrack Now Has 1 Million Members
Booktrack, a tool designed for self-published writers and publishers to add soundtracks to their eBooks, now has more than a million users. The company, which launched 11 months ago, expects to reach 2 million…
Sarah Robb O’Hagan Influencing and Innovating in NY
New Zealander Sarah Robb O’Hagan, 42, was recently named as one of the New York Business Journal’s “Women of Influence” at an inaugural award ceremony honouring business leaders in New York City who innovate,…
Carbon Converter LanzaTech Has Significant Global Potential
Illinois-based LanzaTech, which got its start in a New Zealand basement in 2005, plans to revolutionise ethanol production with a gas-eating microbe, which converts waste gases into useful chemicals and fuels, including ethanol. LanzaTech has…
Building a Better Possum Trap
“In New Zealand, killing small mammals brings people together,” writes staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert in her long-form article in the December 22-29 issue of The New Yorker. Kolbert’s story, “The Big Kill,”…
GM President Dan Ammann Instilling Culture of Accountability
General Motors executive Dan Ammann talks to Fortune about manufacturing in Mexico, and because of a number of recalls over the past decade, how he aims to instill a culture of accountability among the…
Serko’s Darrin Grafton One of World’s 25 Most Influential Travel Execs
New Zealander Darrin Grafton, co-founder and CEO of Serko, an online travel and expense management software company, has been named one of Business Travel News’ 25 most influential industry executives of 2014. Grafton’s win marks…
New Zealand Scientist Attains International Pinnacle In His Field
The Riddet Institute’s Principal Investigator, Professor of Food Chemistry Laurie Melton, has been appointed as an editor of the prestigious Food Chemistry publication. Professor Melton’s appointment confirms New Zealand’s leading role in the Food Sciences…
Plastic Surgeon Simon Talbot Completes Double Arm Transplant
Originally from Hamilton, Dr Simon Talbot, 38, a reconstructive plastic surgeon specialising in hand surgery, has led a team in a ground-breaking double arm transplant on a quadruple amputee at Brigham and Women’s Hospital…
Rodd & Gunn Opens Flagship Store in NY Showroom
New Zealand-owned menswear retailer Rodd & Gunn, which was established in 1946, is stepping up its global expansion plans with a flagship showroom on Madison Avenue in New York. Managing director Mike Beagley, who joined…
New Zealand Scientists Discover Ancient Toothless Whale
Scientists from the University of Otago have discovered two previously unknown ancient whale species, rewriting the history of marine mammals in the Southern Hemisphere. The 25 million year old whales, dubbed Tohoraata raekohao and Tohoraata waitakiensis, translating…
New Zealand, Germany to Cooperate in Bionic Arm Project
Scientists from New Zealand and Germany are to collaborate in developing a bionic joint they say will reduce workplace injuries and help people disabled by strokes. The exoskeleton a machine fitting over the outside of…
General Motors Dan Ammann Drives for Change
General Motors President Dan Ammann is leading the push to change how the century-old Detroit automaker sells and produces cars around the world. Born in New Zealand, raised on a dairy farm at Eureka in…
Mark D’Arcy, Facebook Creative Shop CCO, Speaks About Creativity
Mark D’Arcy, New Zealand born VP and chief creative officer of Facebook Creative Shop, was interviewed by Campaign about the ways new technology has aligned creativity and business. “We grew up with linear forms of…
Alpine Fault Hole Revealing Secrets of Earth’s Crust
An international team of scientists drilling a 1.3-km deep hole into the Alpine Fault in the South Island say they are already gaining valuable insights into the earth’s crust less than a quarter of…
New Zealand Ranked One of the Best Places to Run a Business
New Zealand is among the highest-ranked economies in the World Bank’s latest “Doing Business” report, which scores 189 nations based on how hard it is to run a company there. New Zealand was ranked second…
New Zealand Fault Hole Revealing Secrets of Earth’s Crust
Scientists drilling a 1.3-km deep hole into the Alpine Fault in New Zealand’s South Island say they are already gaining valuable insights into the Earth’s crust less than a quarter of the way down. The…
Ben Knight’s Loomio Software Rallies Spanish Political Party
Spanish political party Podemos (We Can), the first party to ever use a website – Reddit – to organise its members, is also using Loomio, a company co-founded by New Zealander Ben Knight…
New Zealand Sheep Farms Adapt to Changing Demands
The changing face of sheep farming in New Zealand, with a focus on sheep meat exports over the traditional wool harvest, is mapped in an extensive New York Times feature by journalist Mike Ives. “About…
Ronnie Peters Connecting New Zealanders in NYC
Happy Bones is a hip coffee store and art space created by a troika of New Zealanders, and the scene for the monthly “Flat White Meetup”, where entrepreneurs gather to talk about…
Air NZ has “Coolest Airline Paint Job in the World”
Air New Zealand has been judged by Business Insider as having the “coolest airline paint job in the world”, ranked first out of 15 international airlines with striking exterior designs. “As airlines and…
Precious Life Preserved on Ward 3
The beginnings of plastic surgery during World War II and pioneer New Zealand-born Archie McIndoe’s work with the Guinea Pig Club at Queen Victoria Hospital are related in an excerpt taken from Extreme Medicine: How…
New Zealand “Best-Designed Government in the World”
New Zealand has the best designed government in the world, American political commentator Dylan Matthews writes for Vox. “The shire has a mighty fine political system,” he jokes. “Recently New Zealand held its 51st general election,…
600-year-old Waka Found in New Zealand
An ancient canoe with a sea turtle carving has survived 600 years in the South Island, creating a scientific stir around the world. A study of the waka by University of Auckland researchers appeared yesterday…
New Zealand in Top 10 on Asian Creative Productivity Index
A new Creative Productivity Index ranks New Zealand sixth out of 22 Asia Pacific countries which are most efficient at turning creative inputs into tangible innovation. The Creative Productivity Index was developed by…
New Zealand Businesses Opening HQs in Texas
New Zealand software maker Project Manager Online Ltd., founded by Jason Westland (pictured), has opened a headquarters in the United States in Austin, Texas with plans to employ at least 80 workers within two…
Kiwi Startup Coco’s Coconut Co Picked up by Givenchy
Coco’s Coconut Co, a small Kiwi startup that produces a premium brand of coconut water called CoAqua, has landed a deal with French fashion brand Givenchy to be their in-store drink. CoAqua will soon be…
Scientists Closing to Breeding Eco-friendly Sheep
Scientists at New Zealand’s AgResearch and the US Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute have moved a step closer to developing a breed of sheep that belches less methane as part of a quest…
Expert Hacker Debugging the World’s Software
One of Google’s “secret team of bug-hunting hackers” is New Zealander Ben Hawkes. Part of the group known as Project Zero, a group of top Google security researchers with the sole mission of tracking…
Chandler Betting Big on Energy in Africa and Asia
New Zealand-born billionaire Richard Chandler, 55, is counting on gas and oil in far-flung locales from Papua New Guinea to Kenya and Ethiopia, banking on demand from Asia’s growing middle class. Chandler is amassing a…
Zombie Survival Game DayZ Tops 2.5 Million Players
Game designer Dean Hall, 33, has announced that his zombie survival game “DayZ” has reached more than 2.5 million players since its launch in December last year. Prague-based developer Bohemia Interactive recently delayed update 0.49,…
Newly Discovered Asteroid to Fly Over New Zealand
An asteroid is set to pass Earth closest to New Zealand, at a distance of just 25,000 miles, this weekend. Asteroid 2014 RC was discovered by astronomers on 31 August and will pass New Zealand…
Maggie Bolger’s Hip London Kids Club a Soho House for Parents
Maggie Bolger and Rose van Cutsem are, on the face of it, unlikely friends and business partners. Bolger is a matter-of-fact New Zealander who lives in London, while van Cutsem — née Astor —…
Young Kiwi Entrepreneurs Win FedEx Competition
Two teams from New Zealand won both first and second place at the FedEx Express/Junior Achievement International Trade Challenge Asia Pacific, in which students in the region competed with business plans for a beauty…
Vista – New Zealand’s International Software Firm – Rising
New Zealand’s next big software company Vista Group climbed as much as 3 per cent on its first day of trading, after raising $92.6 million in its IPO last month. The New Zealand-based…
Gym President Sarah Robb O’Hagan Recommends Mindfulness
Sarah Robb O’Hagan, president of America’s Equinox fitness chain, believes in the links between exercise and confidence, and beauty and strength. Not surprisingly, the New Zealander is also a tri-athlete. But O’Hagan wasn’t always…
Allpress Espresso Takes Its Beans to Tokyo
New Zealand coffee roasting company Allpress Espresso is expanding their international chain opening an operation in the Tokyo suburb of Kiba. Allpress has also secured 17 wholesale supply accounts in Japan. Japan is…
Jonathan Conway Takes Snow Study High into Canadian Rockies
New Zealand scientist Jonathan Conway, who holds a PhD in glaciology and climatology from the University of Otago, is in the Canadian Rockies on a two-year posting at the University of Saskatchewan’s Centre for…
Second Colossal Squid for NZ Museum
Seven years after a New Zealand museum captured the world’s attention with the first colossal squid, a second of the mammoth sea creatures has been added to Te Papa’s collection. Wellington scientists are excited by…
Kiwi Students Win Big at Microsoft’s Imagine Cup
A group of aspiring technologists from the University of Auckland have taken out one of three grand prizes and won $50,000 at Microsoft’s Imagine Cup in Seattle. Kiwi team Estimeet won the Innovation category at…
Rocket Lab launches Commercial Space and Satellite Service
New Zealand is bracing to get a big slice of the global satellite launch market with its unique space programme getting ready to blast off by 2015. Peter Beck, founder and CEO of private initiative…
Sainsbury’s Invests in Techion Cloud Technology
A small New Zealand-based agri-tech company Techion Group have received a research and development fund from UK supermarket giant Sainsbury’s. The grant of 400,000 Euro will go towards further developing Techion’s cloud-based system for diagnosing…
Greg Foran Named New Wal-Mart USA CEO
Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, has announced New Zealander Greg Foran as CEO of its US business, responsible for 4,700 stores and accounting for 60 percent of the company’s total global revenue of US$476b. Foran,…
Air NZ liberating customers, becomes top profit performer
Within the airline industry, Air New Zealand has plenty of admirers, and is now the most profitable in Australasia with expectations of a full-year pre-tax profit of at least $300 million in August, which…
General Motors President Puts Pedal to the Metal
New Zealander Dan Ammann, 42, president of General Motors is one of the fastest drivers in the company, as reported in The Telegraph, and holds a coveted level-six…
Sean MacPherson Lights Up New York’s East Village
New Zealand-born New York hotelier Sean MacPherson’s new hotel The Ludlow is the sixth and largest in his growing empire of soigné, Downtown lodgings and restaurants, reports the New York Observer. The Ludlow…
Kenyan Startup Backup the Internet with a BRCK
New Zealander Reg Orton, one of Nairobi-based BRCK Inc.’s co-founders, is helping to come up with new commercial products specifically designed to address African problems, namely a “backup generator for the Internet.” About a year…
Hot Pools Home to Useful Bacteria
Researchers from the University of Waikato and GNS Science will search the country’s picturesque hot springs for the next big breakthroughs in science over two-years in what is called the 1000 Springs…
Meet the New Zealander Who Wants to Colonise Mars
Wellington-based scientist Hari Mogosanu is unperturbed by crude pop-culture imaginings of Mars, like the 1990 sci-fi classic Total Recall, writes Danielle Street for Vice. Three years ago, the she formed the New Zealand chapter of…
App Turns Colouring Books into 3D Art
A kiwi invention is taking the beloved pastime of colouring-in to a whole new, high-tech level, allowing kids’ colouring creations to come to life. New Zealand company Puteko’s colAR Mix app allows users to print,…
Kiwi Doctor to Perform Double Arm Transplant
New Zealand Doctor Simon Talbot will lead a surgical team to give a quadruple amputee both his arms back. Will Lautzenheiser, filmmaker and former BU professor, lost all four of his limbs three…
Boeing Delivers First 787-9 Dreamliner to Air New Zealand
New Zealand will be home to the first Boeing 787-9 plane after Air New Zealand officially acquired the first of the 10 new models yesterday. “Boeing is proud to have contractually delivered the first 787-9…
Richard Branson Hosts New Zealand Scientist on Private Island
A New Zealand scientist has spent a week with Richard Branson on his private Caribbean island playing chess, eating sushi and discussing technology and sustainability. Auckland University lecturer Dr Michelle Dickinson was one of eight…
