Innovatek delivers world class events and digital platforms - Connecting industry with the latest technology, innovation & intelligence
Technology Events
Digital News Platforms
Upcoming Events
March 2021

MobileTECH Ag 2021
23-24 March 2021
- Rotorua, NEW ZEALAND
- In-Person + Virtual Online Event
Showcasing the digital technologies transforming the agricultural, horticultural and forestry sectors.
View Website | Register
April 2021

Forest Industry Safety Summit 2021
13 April 2021
- Rotorua, NEW ZEALAND
- In-Person + Virtual Online Event
New practices, systems and tools for improving forest safety.
View Website
Sponsoring or Exhibiting?
If interested in sponsoring or being involved with displays at any of these planned events in 2021 (best to book early as these are sold out every year), please contact FIEA’s Marketing & Sponsorship Manager:
Gordon Thomson, (+64) 7 921 1384, (+64) 27 275 8022, gordon.thomson@innovatek.co.nz.
Longer term sponsorship and branding opportunities can also be discussed.
April 2021

HarvestTECH 2021
13-14 April 2021
- Rotorua, NEW ZEALAND
- In-Person + Virtual Online Event
New technologies in wood transport, log measurement and scaling and mechanised harvesting.
View Website | Register
May 2021

ProteinTECH 2021
5-6 May 2021
- Palmerston North, NEW ZEALAND
- Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
- In-Person + Virtual Online Event
A food technology conference, providing industry pioneers with information on the latest innovations and developments in the alternative protein space.
View Website
Wanting to Present?
If interested in presenting at the MobileTECH, HarvestTECH, WoodTECH or ForestTECH events please contact:
Brent Apthorp, FIEA Director, (+64) 3 470 1902, (+64) 21 227 5177, brent.apthorp@fiea.org.nz.
If interested in presenting at ForestTECHX, Forest Safety & Technology, ProteinTECH, Carbon Forestry or WoodWorks events please contact:
John Stulen, FIEA Director, (+64) 7 921 1382, (+64) 27 275 8011, john.stulen@innovatek.co.nz.
June 2021

Carbon Forestry 2021
15-16 June 2021
Rotorua, NEW ZEALAND
Forestry is New Zealand’s largest potential carbon sink and, as the ETS continues to grow in importance to NZ businesses, so will its investment future.
View Website | Register
August 2021

WoodTECH 2021
3-4 August 2021
Rotorua, NEW ZEALAND
Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
New innovations, technologies, processes and systems in sawmilling, scanning, saw maintenance and mill optimisation.
View Website
Wanting to Attend?
If interested in attending any of these events, all details, including how to register, can be found on the event's website. You will also be able to subscribe to receive email updates about the event.
We run a wide range of events and focus on new technologies and innovations within the primary sector. New Innovatek events will be featured on this events calendar.
September 2021

WoodWorks 2021
21-22 September 2021
Rotorua, NEW ZEALAND
Woodworks brings together leaders in engineered timber design and showcases mass timber developments.
View Website
November 2021

ForestTECH 2021
16-17 November 2021
Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
23-24 November 2021
Rotorua, NEW ZEALAND
New technologies in new forest
inventory, data capture, reporting and management systems.
View Website
Recent Events
ForestTECH 2020
18-19 November 2020
- Rotorua, NEW ZEALAND
- In-Person + Virtual Online Event
New technologies in forest data collection, remote sensing and inventory management
View Website
WoodWorks 2020
20-21 October 2020
Rotorua, NEW ZEALAND
Woodworks brings together leaders in engineered timber design and showcases mass timber developments.
View Website
WoodTECH 2020
Dates: 13-24 July 2020
Online Series of 6 Webinars
Timber Manufacturing, Dry-mill Optimisation and Robotics & Automation.
View Website
Forest Industry Safety Summit 2020
16-18 June 2020
Online Series of 4 Webinars
New practices, systems and tools for improving forest safety.
View Website
MobileTECH AG 2020
April 2020 - Now an Online Event
New Zealand
Showcasing the digital technologies transforming the agricultural, horticultural and forestry sectors.
View Website
ForestTECH 2019
13-14 November 2019
Melbourne, Australia
19-20 November 2019
Rotorua, New Zealand
Australasia’s leading technology event for forest resource managers, remote sensing, GIS, mapping and inventory foresters.
View Website
WoodTECH 2019
11-12 September 2019
Rotorua, New Zealand
17-18 September 2019
Melbourne, Australia
Showcased the latest wood scanning, sawmilling equipment and mill maintenance tools.
View Website
Changing Perceptions 2019
3 September 2019
Auckland, New Zealand
Growing the capability and use of wood in commercial and multi-residential buildings throughout our cities.
View Website
ProteinTECH 2019
30-31 July 2019
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
What alternative protein means for the New Zealand primary industries and what opportunities we have to get on board.
View Website
HarvestTECH 2019
26-27 June 2019
Rotorua, New Zealand
Showcased new innovations and operating practices suited to our local harvesting operations.
View Website
HarvestTECHx 2019
13-14 March 2019
Vancouver, Canada
Showcased new innovations and operating practices suited to our North American harvesting operations.
View Website
MobileTECH 2019
3-4 April 2019
Rotorua, New Zealand
Showcased digital technologies transforming the agricultural, horticultural and forestry sectors.
View Website

Event Management
Trusted, Experienced and Skilled. We have organised and run more than 500 events throughout New Zealand, Australia & North America over 20 years. While we have a wide range of conference and exhibition clients, our reputation has been built around a close connection with the primary sector and an understanding on how technology and innovation impacts on these industries.
Our events include a wide range of:
Conferences
Exhibitions / Tradeshows
Workshops / Seminars
Awards Nights / Industry Dinners
Events Organisation
Organising and running an event is a complex and time consuming process – there is so much that can go wrong. We are here to make that whole process easy, seamless and stress free for you.
We can cover a range of event management services:
- Conference planning
- Full design of speaking programme
- Event branding and marketing
- Sponsorship acquisition
- Event registrations
- Speaker, sponsor & delegate management
- Event execution
We offer a wide range of conference and event management services designed to give you the best possible experience. Please contact us for a full set of event design and management services. We will ensure your event will attract the right delegates, presenters and trade exhibitors to meet and exceed your expectations.
Innovatek are professional event organisers, with offices in Rotorua and Dunedin, New Zealand and Melbourne, Australia. We have a wide range of conference and exhibition clients and our well-deserved reputation spans more than 20 years.
Event Services
Events are made up of many individual components. While we specialise in the complete package, we can also help in a number of areas, including:
- Independent advice on venue selection
- Venue liaison and coordination
- Managing event action plans for organising committees
- Project management and scheduling
- Helping prepare event budgets, pricing and financial statements
- Event promotion and advertising
- Event marketing including online campaigns, brochure design, production and distribution
- Event website design and management
- Sponsorship sourcing and exhibition management
- Management of delegates’ registrations
- Social programme organisation and coordination
- Speaker management
- Proceedings collation, design, printing and distribution
- ‘Hands-on’ personal and professional event services on the day
- Post event management to maximise your event’s impact
With our proven knowledge, attention to detail and capability to deliver innovative, customised, professional and successful events throughout Australasia, Innovatek looks forward to hearing from you.

Testimonials
Dr Ruud Kleinpaste, Entomologist (The Bugman)
“I have nothing but praise for the manner in which Innovatek organised and executed this Conference. It was one of the smoothest events I have ever attended and it was done with class and character. The catering was perfectly organised, the timing was impeccable, the venue “dressed” appropriately and with style.”
Warren Grigsby, Scion, Member of PRBBCS Organisation Committee
“For me personally, the value of Innovatek came in the last couple of months prior to the conference and the week of the conference. Organising a conference is a thankless task, but with many of the administrative tasks handled by Innovatek we, as a conference organising committee, found the burden taken off us in the last weeks leading up to the conference.”
Dave Little, Manager, Harvesting & Marketing, Crown Forestry
“Where there has been an opportunity for an evening event, such as a guest/celebrity speaker Innovatek have staged some very successful evenings, normally over an organised dinner. I personally would recommend Innovatek to any organisation considering holding a top class conference.”
Peter Hall, Project Leader, SCION
“The speakers & presentations were of a high standard and the networking opportunities excellent. The effort put in to get the speakers organised and their presentations published prior to the conference was much appreciated. The conference staff were very helpful and professional.”
Willie Shaw & Chris Bycoft, Conference Convenors
“On behalf of the New Zealand Ecological Society conference organising committee, we wish to thank you very much for your excellent work with our annual conference in Rotorua. It was an excellent conference, as reflected in the many positive comments from attendees from throughout NZ and from other countries.”
Rob Mallinson, Managing Director, Living Energy
“I have attended at least seven large conferences organised by Innovatek in both Australia and New Zealand. All these events have been run in an extremely professional manner. There have been no glitches or detail forgotten – which can make all the difference to the attendee. Their experience seems to ensure that proceedings flow well, allowing a full schedule and value for money for the attendee and the exhibitors. I would have no qualms at all in recommending Innovatek.”
Mary Drummond, Marketing and Administration Advisor, Energy for Industry
“We found Innovatek's professionalism, organisation and execution of the Wood Energy Conference consistent with previous involvement over several years. Once again the event was very well orchestrated in every aspect of contact.”
Brian Richardson PhD, Group Manager, New Forests and Forest Science, Scion
“The International Forest Bio-security Conference hosted by Scion was a tremendous success by any measure. Innovatek played a significant part in that success by ensuring the event was run seamlessly and to budget, guests were well looked after, and everything ran according to schedule. Many participants rated this conference as the best or one of the best conferences they had been to.”
David Reid, Solutions Development Manager, Energy for Industry
“One of the better conferences I have attended in terms of organisation and balance – fantastic.”

Digital News Platforms
We publish a range of e-newsletters with the aim to better connect industry with the latest news, technologies, innovation and market intelligence.
Our two major e-newsletters are Friday Offcuts and WoodWeek. Both e-newsletters are read by 10,000 each week and have, for the last 15 years, been leaders in their respective industries for weekly news and current events.
Communication with industry members is a vital element to any organisation and providing a well-run e-newsletter is the best way to keep everyone informed on the current happenings within your industry. E-newsletters are also a great way to bring a community together and help spread the knowledge about new technologies to improve their business.
These digital news platforms are recognised as the leading weekly news sources in the Australian and New Zealand forestry sectors.
We have also developed WoodTECH.news, ForestTECH.news and HarvestTECH.news as regular targeted newsletters to key industries within the forestry and wood products sector.
We have developed proprietary technology and processes for the creation and management of digital news platforms. We would love to talk to you further about how this could help you and your industry.
For details on advertising in any of our industry newsletters or event sponsorship in general, please contact Gordon Thomson via (+64) 7 921 1384 or gordon.thomson@innovatek.co.nz.
Industry Newsletters
Friday Offcuts
The leading weekly newsletter on the latest industry news read by the Australasian forest products industry.
View Website
WoodWeek
A popular weekly newsletter read by New Zealand and Australian forestry contractors, forest managers and forest owners.
View Website
ForestTECH.News
A monthly newsletter providing the latest updates relevant to forest resource management and planning in Australasia.
View Website
WoodTECH.News
A monthly newsletter providing the latest updates on sawmilling, wood manufacturing and wood products companies in Australasia.
View Website
HarvestTECH.News
A monthly newsletter providing the latest updates for wood harvesting and transport operations throughout Australasia.
View Website

About Us
Innovatek started in 1998 as a technology transfer event management company and has well over two decades within the industry.
A large part of the initial business has been in running the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA) and an extensive series of technical programmes for forestry and wood products companies. Over 500 programmes throughout New Zealand and Australia have been run to date. These provide an independent forum for local companies to evaluate new technologies.
FIEA is well established as a leading provider of technology transfer services for forest products companies throughout Australasia. It has very strong linkages and partnership arrangements with most major technology providers, equipment suppliers, research institutions and industry associations throughout the region.
Innovatek has since run additional technology transfer events into a number of primary sectors throughout Australasia and, in more recent times, Canada and USA.
Innovatek also publishes the forestry industry’s leading e-newsletters, Friday Offcuts and WoodWeek. Starting back in 2005, Friday Offcuts quickly became the leading source of weekly news and technologies for the forestry industry. This enabled the launch of Friday Offcut's sister publication, WoodWeek. Both e-newsletters have gone on to lead their particular niches and provide a successful platform for others to utilise the system within their own sectors.
Along with FIEA, we also provide secretarial and management services for the New Zealand based Wood Council, the Southern Wood Council.
Events

Innovatek Events
Innovatek is a leading provider of technology transfer events for the primary and manufacturing sectors. This includes NZ agritech events, MobileTECH & ProteinTECH and several forestry events in North America.
View Events
Network

Forest Industry Engineering Association
FIEA is the leading provider of technology transfer events for the forest and wood products industry.
View Website
Association

Southern Wood Council
The Southern Wood Council promotes sustainable economic development of forestry in Otago and Southland.
View Website
eMedia

Friday Offcuts
Friday Offcuts is the most widely read and distributed forest products e-newsletter in the Australasia.
View Website
eMedia

WoodWeek
WoodWeek is a leading industry e-newsletter for Australasian forestry contractors, managers and owners.
View Website

Contact
FIEA Contact Details
(+64) 7 921 1382
1800 126 398 (from Australia)
Rotorua Office
- Innovatek
- Building X91, Sala Street, Rotorua 3010, New Zealand
- PO Box 1230, Rotorua 3040, New Zealand
- Ph (+64) 7 921 1382
Dunedin Office
- Innovatek
- c/o Distinction Dunedin Hotel, 6 Liverpool Street, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand
- PO Box 904, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
- Ph (+64) 3 470 1902