We’ve completed 100+ innovation projects across 13 countries.

Who we worked with Metro North Health, Queensland Australia What we did together  T7 Masterclass in Innovation What happens when a major public health provider joins forces with Creative HQ? You get a powerful alliance that’s reimagining healthcare at its…

If you are planning to start a business or if you are running an early-stage startup, you’ll need all the advice that you can get. This is the perfect time to level up your skill sets and soak in as…

On 12 September 2024, Creative HQ hosted the New Zealand Final of the Startup World Cup, bringing together eleven of Aotearoa’s most promising early-stage tech ventures to compete for a place at the Grand Finale in Silicon Valley. Founders delivered…

Say “GovTech” to most founders and they picture one thing: a piece of software sold to a government department. Fair enough, that’s part of it. But it’s a much bigger, weirder, more interesting space than that, and if you’re building…

Wellington – 8 December 2022: Boosting rangatahi engagement and supporting young women into sustainable agriculture careers are among the issues that 14 projects have tackled in New Zealand’s only government innovation programme, the GovTech Accelerator. Delivered by Wellington’s innovation hub,…

Who we worked with Participants aged 16-24 years old and local businesses What we did together 15-week innovation programme Key skills Applied Innovation – lean, agile, discovery, ideation, market validation, prototyping Read more Stuff – “How to make brands like…

Wellington – 07 Mar 2023: The Wellington-based School of Innovation run by Creative HQ has seen a significant increase in people studying innovation in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. To meet the steadily growing market demand, Creative HQ now…

A platform making sport more accessible to thousands of children is just 1 of the successful projects selected for the inaugural Access Activator programme. Developed in partnership the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha and Creative HQ, the programme invited…

I recently attended an executive education course at Stanford University, and in a room of 80 business leaders from around the world, only eight were women.  I found that fact odd, a little bit shocking even. In my daily interactions,…

Creative HQ, Wellington’s Innovation hub, is pleased to commence its fifth GovTech Accelerator programme, which presents a unique opportunity for entrepreneurs and government agencies to collaborate and tackle urgent social and environmental challenges Aotearoa is facing.  Creative HQ and the…

Who we worked with Valenzuela City What we did together 16-week accelerator Key skills Innovation methodologies and tools, human-centred design, team collaboration and online collaboration Read more Valenzuela City, New Zealand Government Showcase Innovative Social Welfare Programme Since 2018, Creative…

Wellington, 27 April 2022 Creative HQ was established in 2003 through Wellington’s economic development agency, at the time called Positively Wellington Business, and now known as WellingtonNZ. It was tasked with supporting the development of high-growth new businesses, with a…

Who we worked with Transpower What we did together 10-day challenge Key Skills Problem discovery, ideation Transpower is a New Zealand company with a big job: manage all the long-distance electricity transmission across the country. Electricity generated by power plants…

Who we worked with Contact Energy What we did together Design sprint Key Skills Problem Discovery, Ideation, Prototyping Contact Energy is one of New Zealand’s leading energy generators and retailers, providing electricity, natural gas and LPG to about 562,000 customers…

Who we worked with Ho Chi Minh People’s Committee What we did together Built innovation capability in HCMPC staff. In April 2019, twenty delegates from the Ho Chi Minh People’s Committee (HCMPC) in Vietnam came to Creative HQ for two…

Who we worked with Callaghan Innovation What we did together A series of sprints to re-design the customer experience for the RDTI The Research and Development Tax Incentive (RDTI) scheme is New Zealand’s largest government financial support mechanism for R&D….

Who we worked with MFAT and NZ business representatives What we did together Sprint Key Skills Problem discovery, ideation With an unprecedented series of sporting, cultural and political events happening in Japan from 2019–2025, New Zealand companies and agencies have…

On 7 December we took over the Beehive to celebrate New Zealand innovators working to solve some of Aotearoa’s most urgent challenges. From tackling migrant exploitation, to developing a new approach to foster care, 14 GovTech Accelerator teams that have been taking…

OPINION 26 August 2024 – Have you ever been freedom camping? Did you find a nice spot of grass and just pitch your tent? Have you ever done this on the lawn of Parliament? In Feb 2022, the grounds of…

In 2024, nine teams took part in Creative HQ’s Climate Response Accelerator, joining a growing cohort of ventures working at the intersection of climate action and commercial opportunity. Over an intensive three-month programme, these founders tested assumptions, refined their models…

Raising capital as a startup founder, especially as a female founder, can be a daunting challenge. In a recent webinar, Sarah Park and Dr Kathleen Lucere from Even Capital shared their insights on navigating the venture capital (VC) landscape. They…

Wellington has a reputation for producing ambitious startups, with many people in the city angling to join a tech company to grow their career. But despite this being a growing and energised sector, there’s conflicting data about the job market…

Wellington was buzzing with energy as hundreds of innovators, entrepreneurs and industry leaders came together for Fintech Hui Taumata 2026 in Wellington. This is New Zealand’s flagship fintech event, bringing together leaders from government, financial services, technology and startups to collaborate…

The 2022 GovTech Accelerator brought together startups, NGOs and public-sector innovators in a 13-week programme designed to address social and environmental challenges through cross-sector collaboration. The cohort worked alongside coaching, mentorship and innovation methods to test and advance solutions that…

Who we worked with Government agencies What we did together 13-week Accelerator Skills Co-design, Applied Innovation tools Read more “Westpac announces $375k over three years to solve NZ Inc issues through GovTech” – Stuff Since 2018, Creative HQ has run…

Embarking on the startup journey can be thrilling, but it comes with challenges—and accounting is a crucial area where founders need a solid foundation. At a recent event, Jono Rees from BoostNest Accountants shared his thoughts on accounting basics for…

Who we worked with Tourism startups and organisations What we did together 12-months coaching through our Accelerator startup programme Key Skills Lean, Agile, Market validation Read more “Tourism Accelerator launches to help startup founders re-shape thetourism industry.” – Tourism Export…

Who we worked with Reusabowl What we did together 12-month coaching through our Incubator startup programme Key skills Applied Innovation Read more “New Zealand is not as clean or green as we think” – Guardian Empowering takeaway lovers to reduce…

Who we worked with Te Puni Kōkiri What we did together 10-day sprint The Ministry has a broad mandate to support whānau Māori to thrive, through policy design and implementation, monitoring other government departments’ work, and relationship management and advocacy…

The NZ Tech Rally community and its annual conference isn’t just another event packed with buzzwords and polished presentations. Its core mission is to provide inclusive spaces for the Aotearoa tech community to celebrate, connect and grow together. They achieve…

If you’ve spent any time around Wellington’s startup ecosystem, you’ve probably heard us talk about Labs and Activate programmes in the same breath – Fintech Lab, Aurora Climate Lab, GovTech Activate, CreativeTech Activate. It’s easy to assume they’re all the…

Founders that are driving social and environmental change Since 2013, Creative HQ ran 17 accelerator programmes across New Zealand, supporting more than 150 companies and facilitating over $100 million in seed and Series A investment. In 2023, it delivered its…

Wellington – 12 April 2022 Creative thinkers, designers, innovators and entrepreneurs will be able to come together at the Capital’s annual design festival – Mindset of Design – from the 16th to the 20th of May as Omicron retreats from Wellington, and…

Who we worked with Plunket What we did together T7 Masterclass in Innovation Recognising their need to innovate, Whānau Āwhina Plunket had two objectives: to grow their internal innovation capability by developing innovative skill sets and to explore different funding…

On 9 October 2025, Te Raukura ki Kāpiti hosted the New Zealand Final of the Startup World Cup for the first time, bringing a global stage to the Kāpiti Coast in partnership with Creative HQ. Twelve of Aotearoa’s most promising…

Mike Lovegrove started his founder journey by creating Bot the Builder (later named JRNY) back in 2017. We first started working with Mike when he brought his company into the 2018 Lightning Lab FinTech Accelerator. Mike’s story is a fantastic…

Scotty Diamond started his founder’s journey by creating Fit Rewards in 2022.  We started working with Scotty when he brought his company into Creative HQ’s 2023 Impact Accelerator. Scotty has an inspirational story about overcoming adversity and giving your all…

Creative HQ’s Government Innovation Lead Jonnie Haddon sat down with David Downs, former CEO of New Zealand Story and incoming CEO of Education New Zealand, for a candid conversation about public sector innovation, AI and what it actually takes to…

Shalini Divya started her founder’s journey by creating the company TasmanIon as an extension of her PhD research on new battery technologies, which she started back in 2018. We first met Shalini when she brought her company into Creative HQ’s…

Four household-named Wellington organisations have tasked a team of local Gen Z innovators to find solutions to some of their most pressing problems. This week, the participants will reveal their ideas.  Creative HQ’s first-ever Wellington Innovation Hack connected a cohort…

How many companies in New Zealand can claim that they played a critical role in our COVID response and helped Barack Obama get elected? Silverstripe can, and they can also rightfully claim to be a key part of the fabric…

The story of Publons is a great illustration of the power of vision and determination, and the impact you can achieve with a startup. Publons was one of the 10 companies in our first startup accelerator programme, Lightning Lab 2013….

How do you know if you’ve got a winning idea? If you think you might have a winning idea, start by running it through a market validation process.  Testing the market is an effective way to tell if your idea is worth…

Chances are that you have encountered at least one of these terms throughout your career, but do you really know what they mean? We’ve put together a quick cheat sheet to help you navigate your way through the innovation jargon….

Sharesies has become a household name in New Zealand. We were lucky to be able to work with them when they were a team of six founders in Creative HQ’s 2017 FinTech Accelerator programme. Their story provides a great example…

Chances are that you have encountered at least one of these terms throughout your career, but do you really know what they mean? We’ve put together a quick cheat sheet to help you navigate your way through the innovation jargon….

We’re lucky enough to already be set up for remote working: we offer working from home options for our team, and we often work remotely with clients from around the globe. To help you get started, we’ve put together a…

An exponential technology is two things First, it’s exponential. In each period it doubles in capability or performance. Or perhaps on the flip side, it halves in cost in each period. Computers are an example of an exponential technology we’re…

As innovators, problems are our bread and butter and turning them into opportunities is what we do best. In order to do this effectively, we need to know what the problem is. A vague problem is an unsolvable problem because…

Coworking spaces let you share a space with other like-minded people allowing you to collaborate and share the journey with other people. Most spaces are set up for both individuals and small companies and a few will be able to…