Wellington | Claude Impact Lab

Description

Registration open again - Demos start at 4:30pm and you can arrive from 4pm. Wellington Impact Lab — a one-day civic AI hackathon Keeping Wellington informed in an emergency. New Zealand's first Impact Lab starts with a real city problem. On Saturday 8 August, Wellington's builder community works alongside Wellington City Council emergency-management experts to turn public information into tools people could genuinely use — before and during an emergency. WCC's emergency management team has had ten activations in the past two years. The problems you'll work on aren't hypothetical — they come straight from those operations, and the people who own them will be in the room. The challenge Emergency decisions are only as good as the information flow behind them. Five real WCC problems, narrowed to the strongest tracks on the day: How it works Who should apply Developers, designers, data folk, product thinkers, and anyone from Wellington's civic and emergency-management community who wants to build something useful on a bad day. Places are limited and teams are kept small — apply early. Run of day 8:00 Doors, breakfast, team formation 9:00 Problem briefing + datasets 9:30 Build begins 12:30 Lunch + lightning talks 4:00 Submissions close 4:30 Live demos + judging 5:30 Awards 6:00 Close Judging Usefulness beats polish. Prototypes are scored on usefulness to WCC, working with the supplied data, a working demo, honesty about limits, and a credible path to real use. The best outcome isn't a perfect prototype — it's a credible next step for Wellington. Venue: Wellington City Council Hosted by Chris Watson & Adam Holt, Claude Community Ambassadors Organisers: Creative HQ & ZunoSmart Labs Food & Drink: Catering provided. This is an alcohol-free event.