Tūhura Tech

23/05/2026

❗ Urgent appeal: we want to keep Tūhura Tech running!

Kia ora everyone, we have some difficult news to share with you this week.

A couple of really important sources of funding have fallen through in the past few days, and unfortunately, Tūhura Tech is at risk of imminent closure. If we can't secure funding, our sessions will be wrapping up, for the last time, on Friday 29th May.

‼️ It's not too late!! (yet)

Truthfully, none of us here at Tūhura Tech want to close! We believe in what we do, and in the positive impact we have on our community, and the students and families that we work with. And we hope that, if you're reading, you agree.

But what we need to keep going is: ✨ funding ✨

Because of the time crunch, we need urgent support if we're going to keep going. And you can help. $20 alone can pay for a session for one of our rangatahi, while $800 covers sessions for that same student for an entire year: https://donate.tuhuratech.org.nz/

Or, if you, or your organisation, is interested in sponsoring us to try and bridge the gap in our funding this round, you can learn more or get in touch with us at: [email protected]

💫 Signing off

Finding funding for non-profits is a challenge at the best of times. We're proud to say that it's a challenge our sponsors and staff have worked together to meet, time and time again. But– given recent news about budget cuts, and the general economic uncertainty that everyone in Wellington is facing right now –this time we're bracing ourselves for the worst.

We sincerely hope that we can turn this around, but if we do have to close our doors and end our sessions, we just want to say:

We have loved every minute of working with you. What we've achieved would not have been possible without your support, and we wish you all the very best of luck with what we've learned together so far.

Ngā mihi nui, and kia kaha everyone,

The Tūhura Tech team xx

15/05/2026

Guess what? Tūhura Tech is at NZ Tech Rally today! 🌟

We're very lucky to be one of the non-profit exhibitors at 'NZ's most loved grassroots tech conference' this year.

We've already made a ton of great connections, but if you're around, and haven't said hi yet: come say hi!

(We definitely don't bite)

11/05/2026

We have a new board member! We would like to extend a warm welcome to the very brilliant Kathleen Wang 🎉

Kathleen is a Year 13 student at Newlands College who is passionate about technology and STEM. She is the Lead Organiser for Genesia Girls Wellington () and is dedicated to supporting and encouraging young people, especially other young women, in technology.

Welcome to the board, Kathleen. We're really excited to work with you 💖

10/05/2026

That's a wrap for us at Play by Play with NZ Games Festival this year! Thank you so so much to everyone who came out to see our talks, attend our workshops, or chat to us about volunteer and career opportunities 🥳🎮🙌

And to everyone who asked about how to best support us to keep doing the work we do (and to keep doing it for free), here's a quick guide!

✨ We are always eternally grateful for donations. $20 alone can pay for a session for one of our rangatahi, while $800 covers sessions for that same student for an entire year:

Donate to Tūhura Tech: https://donate.tuhuratech.org.nz/

✨ Equipment donations! We want to bridge the gap for students, and being able to provide devices to students helps us do this. If you have spare, working laptops, tablets, or other devices, we can use these to equip students in our sessions.

✨ Volunteer with us! Our kaiako could always use more support and assistance.

✨ Strategic partnerships and sponsorships: if your organisation is interested in sponsoring, or learning more, get in touch with us at [email protected]

Thanks everyone! We hope you had as much fun as we did, and we're looking forward to sharing more of our mahi with you 💛

04/05/2026

Less than a week to go until our free, all-day game design workshop (for ages 10-18) at NZ Games Festival ✨

The workshop will run from 10am-4pm on May 10, at the Michael Fowler Centre. We still have space in both our beginner and advanced sessions, but we can only take a maximum of 30 participants in each - so, sign up now if this sounds like your jam!

🌟 Sign up for Game Design using Godot (beginner workshop): https://sessions.tuhuratech.org.nz/signup?session=019d46a6-a70a-7ef3-83d1-8113b677162a

🌟 Sign up for Game Design using Godot (advanced workshop): https://sessions.tuhuratech.org.nz/signup?session=019d46ac-bbb2-7522-ad89-30329a13af99

Note: The advanced stream is best suited for kids and teens who already have some experience programming and making games.

01/05/2026

Reminder that we'll be running free Godot game workshops on May 10 for NZ Games Festival this year!

✨ Sign ups are on the Play by Play website: https://nzgamesfest.com/level-up-workshops/

23/04/2026

With term 2 officially underway, we're excited to say that sessions are officially about to start up again!

We're all back on from the 28th (cheeky reminder that Monday 27th is a public holiday). And! We still have some spaces left in our shiny new sessions at the Te Matapihi makerspace on Mondays and Fridays.

So, if you want to sign up, there's still time!

💫 Sign up for sessions: https://tuhuratech.org.nz/mahi/

17/04/2026

You may have noticed we've been posting a little more than usual. Well, this is because we now have a staff member dedicated to running our communications and social media channels! 🧑‍💻🎉

We'd like to welcome our new Community Engagement Lead, Dani Yourukova

Dani is a poet, literary critic, and book reviews editor for Heritage NZ (and also the new Community Engagement Lead for Tūhura tech). They don't know anything about robots, but they're really passionate about making education accessible, and supporting others to do the stuff they’re good at. They like doomed arctic expeditions, children's picture books, and necromancy.

16/04/2026

If you're one of our subscribers, you'll already know this, but our newsletter is hot off the presses! 🎉

For the rest of our lovely followers: our newsletter is a monthly summary of what we've been up to, including feature articles (this month it's an intro to our new staff members!), and a sneak peek at our upcoming events.

So if you want to make sure you're on top of all of the cool events and opportunities we've got coming up, why not subscribe? 💫

✉ Subscribe to the Tūhura Tech newsletter: https://blog.tuhuratech.org.nz/newsletter

✉ March newsletter:
https://blog.tuhuratech.org.nz/newsletter-march-2026/

16/04/2026

We're very excited to share that one of our Lead mentors, Zelle Marcovicci, is going to be speaking at Play by Play this year!

Zelle is a Creative Media Production graduate specializing in video games and interactive technology. They teach immersive storytelling and programming at Massey University alongside her Tūhura Tech work.

(She's also hilarious, smart, insightful, and one of the best public speakers I've ever seen. Come see this.)

🥳 Introducing more of our wonderful speakers at the Play By Play conference! 💁

👉Anna Lezhikova | CyberFern, Founder
“Side Quests in Security: Keeping Your Game (and You) Safe”

Cloud storage, AI tools, Discord, npm packages – each is a potential vulnerability. Security isn't just for corporations. Simple, practical steps to protect your game, data, and sanity.

👉Jevon Wright | Stormcloak Games, Director
“Why I didn't use generative AI in my game, and you shouldn't either”

In 2026 companies are still trying to convince us generative AI needs to be in everything– it doesn’t and is actually extremely dangerous. In this talk Jevon will be drawing on her experiences, data, and research to explain why.

👉Zelle Marcovicci | Lead Mentor, Tūhura Tech
“Pay to Lose! (The Death of the Microtransaction)”

Video games are getting too comfortable asking us for cash, and lots of it, too. These games may be called "Pay to Win," but are any of us winning? Zelle takes a tour through the hilarious history of "microtransactions" in games. You'll laugh, cry and cringe at the money we burn.

Join us at the Play By Play Conference from May 8-9 at the Michael Fowler Centre!

Tickets available via link in bio. 🔗