gaming – Creative Welly – Courageous conversations with bold humans.

Creative Welly Episode #47 | Tui Te Hau & Mario Wynands

Courageous conversations with bold humans (from the most creative little capital in the world).

Tui Te Hau, Rongomaiwahine, Te Arawa, Ngāti Tuwharetoa

Tui is the founder of Bird Island, an innovation and ideas consultancy. Her background spans international trade, business acceleration and incubation, the culture and heritage sector and governance.

Tui is currently Entrepreneur in Residence at the Atom, Victoria University, head of innovation at Oyster Workshop (working with amazing Māori and Pacific creatives) and innovation lead with the Selwyn Foundation (looking at impact investing to support vulnerable elderly). She holds governance roles with Dev Academy and the Mary Potter Hospice.

Mario Wynands, CEO, PikPok

Mario Wynands is the CEO and co-founder of PikPok, a leading publisher of video games for mobile, desktop, and console based in Aotearoa New Zealand. Since 1997 he has led the studio in building a successful games portfolio that includes the critically and commercially successful Rival Stars® Horse Racing, Into the Dead® and Into the Dead 2, Super Monsters Ate My Condo™, Shatter® and more, which have been recognized with BAFTA and DICE Award nominations, as well as included on App Store and Google Play best of year lists. Wynands is a graduate of Victoria University in Wellington with degrees in business management and computer science.

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Creative Welly Episode #27 | Negin Imani & Derek Bradley

Courageous conversations with bold humans (from the most creative little capital in the world).

Dr Negin Imani

Negin is a lecturer in Architectural and Building Science, founder of Biomimicry NZ, representing New Zealand in the Biomimicry Institute global network, and a Visiting Scholar at the School of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand since 2020.

Negin’s research is focused on sustainable architecture and biomimetic energy efficient building design. She is the first post-doctoral researcher at the VUW school of architecture. Her research investigates possibilities to develop living building modules. She has co-authored the book “Heating with Wolves, Cooling with Cacti”.

As a recipient of the National Science Challenge, Science for Technological Innovation, Seed Project grant, Negin is working as the Principle Investigator of the project, Biomimetic Buildings for Climate Change Adaptation: Future Generation of Facades.

Derek Bradley, CEO, A44 Games

Derek Bradley is the CEO of A44 Games an independent games studio based in Wellington, New Zealand. He was the Game Director on ASHEN, the company’s first title, which was released world-wide at the Annual Game Awards in 2018.

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Creative Welly Episode #23 | Samantha Gadd & Phyo Thu

Courageous conversations with bold humans (from the most creative little capital in the world).

Samantha Gadd, Passionate about all things business and employee experience, Founder / Director of Humankind and EX Design School

I am a super proud mum of three boys, business founder and EX enthusiast. I am obsessed with business, leadership, growth, brand and all things people in business.

I have recently launched EX Design School, having just stepped away from my CEO role at Humankind after nearly 10 years. EX Design School is an online programme and community with global ambitions, looking to transform how business leaders and HR practitioners design awesome employee experiences. I’m excited to learn about how to build a product and global community, alongside putting my business experience to the next test!

Phyo Thu, eMotion Maker, Founder and Creative Director of Fox & Co

After nearly a decade of experience in motion design and visual effects, I started my animation studio, Fox & Co Design, to fuel my passion for storytelling through animation and unite a subculture of like-minded creatives with the same enthusiasm. I’ve been fortunate to have built a talented team that shares my vision, and together, we continue to create inspiring visuals.

Virtual production is becoming a leading trend to constant evolutions in the animation industry – I’m excited to see how we can leverage all the emerging technology to push our boundaries and take our creativity to the next level!

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Creative Welly Episode #3 | Raqi Syed & Gabe Davidson

Courageous conversations with bold humans (from the most creative little capital in the world).

Raqi Syed, Digital Artist

Raqi Syed is a writer and artist who has worked on a bunch of films. In 2017, The Los Angeles Times pegged Raqi for its list of 100 Industry professionals who can help fix Hollywood’s Diversity Problem.

Her writing focuses on film and gender, film technology, and the history and business of visual effects. Her VR experience, MINIMUM MASS, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and her essays have appeared in TechCrunch, Vice, Salon, Quartz, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Raqi is a 2018 Sundance New Frontier Story Lab Fellow, and 2020 Ucross Fellow.

She holds an MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and an MA in Creating Writing from Victoria University of Wellington, and is a Senior Lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington.

Gabe Davidson, Cocoa Bean Hunter

Gabe is the co-founder of The Wellington Chocolate Factory and founder of The Original Cocoa Traders, Melbourne.

A keen interest in ethical business he is an advocate for fairly traded cocoa and has gone to great lengths to source and promote interesting cocoa varieties, from the Peruvian Andes to PNG and the South Pacific.

Gabe lives on the Kapiti Coast with partner Hayley and three little ones.

When he’s not playing entrepreneur or dad, he loves playing live music with his band ‘Swagman’ and enjoys his role as a food rescue driver with Kaibosh.

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