Summer of Code - Students in Start-ups

Wellington probably can’t say too much about Summer right now, as the weather’s pretty average, but that hasn’t stopped Silicon Welly having a Summer of Code, pulled together by a a couple of CreativeHQ resident companies ProjectX/Zoomin and LetUseIt, Summer of Code is backed by CreativeHQ, Positively Wellington Business and FRST (Foundation for Research Science and Technology).

Getting Students into Start-ups

Summer of code is all about getting IT students into our Silicon Welly start-ups and getting them amongst the action of making it happen. As soon as John Clegg mentioned the idea last year, I thought - perfect, and jumped at the opportunity to get someone, and after less than 2 weeks he was sharing a Sunday in at the office with the PlanHQ team fixing bugs and helpng us get ready for our Beta Launch the following day.

The Best way to grow our Knowledge economies is to support start-ups

This sort of thing was never around when I was going through Uni, but if it was it would have been exactly what I was after. I remember hassling heaps of companies convincing them to let me into their IT departments, while studying and in my holiday’s. I hooked a few, but start-ups are a different experience. I’ve joined them, and started my own a few times now, and there’s nothing like backing yourself and your crew and making something world class. Kicking off a start-up is no small commitment, You sink money, time and your reputation into something you believe is going to be worth a lot, having people and organisations realise and support this is fantastic, big credit to FRST from the New Zealand Government for getting behind this and making the grant process as simple as possible!

It’s going to be a very good year!