Taking NZ to the worldwide stage

Hot new technology business, Ponoko, launched itself onto the worldwide stage in September at the TechCrunch40 conference in San Francisco.  Chosen from more than 700 start-up companies from 26 countries, Ponoko presented at the prestigious technology event.  True to well-established Kiwi ingenuity, Ponoko is the world’s first personal manufacturing platform.  Using the Ponoko website (www.ponoko.com), customers can invent and design new products and have them made to order, or sell their  designs to others.“Ponoko enables anyone to turn an idea for a product into a reality, by connecting designers and consumers with an international network of digital manufacturing hardware that can be controlled directly from any PC. It also acts as a global marketplace for original ideas and new inventions by allowing people to buy, sell and share designs,” said Ponoko co-founder and CEO David ten Have. “Products can be made anywhere in the world. Because they can be made close to where a buyer lives, they don’t have to be shipped over great distances or stored in bulk in warehouses. This keeps costs down and is kinder on the environment,” ten Have clarified.Co-founder of Ponoko is Derek Elley, who acts as Chief Strategy Officer for the company.  Technology start-ups are not new to Elley and ten Have, as ten Have was, in fact, one of the original five founders of Provoke Solutions Ltd.  Elley was co-founder and CEO of internet marketing agency, First Rate, which is now New Zealand’s only Google AdWords Qualified Company.“Ultimately, our aim is to establish a community of digital manufacturing hardware operators around the world.  This will include established owners of digital manufacturing equipment, but has the potential to be hugely diverse, including offices, homes or schools,” stated Elley.Ponoko currently has a digital manufacturing bureau in Wellington and plans to open bureaus in the United States over the coming months.