This summer, find out what you're capable of.

Ten weeks working for yourself, in a team, with support you'd find hard to get working for someone else. Bring an idea, or find one here.

Wellington10 weeks[DATES]

At the end of it, you'll stand in front of Wellington's tech industry and show them something you built. Come February you'll have proven real-world experience for your next job application, and, for some, a product worth taking further.

Apply for The Foundry I want to help

About 60 Wellington students will spend this summer on a Summer of Tech internship.

100

Up to 100 will spend it at The Foundry.

A room full of student teams working at tables with laptops, a mentor leaning in to help one group

You won't get paid.

Pay is the one thing an internship gives you that this doesn't.

That's why it's afternoons only. Your mornings, evenings and weekends are free, so you can keep a paid job alongside it.

It also costs you nothing, and everything you build is 100% yours: your idea, your code, your customers, your call.

You're not working for someone else for free. You're working for yourself.

Senior people in the room, every week, who want to see you succeed.

In many first jobs, the senior people are busy with their own work. At The Foundry, helping you is the work. The people around you have built and shipped real products, and they know what it takes to get yours right.

They're Summer of Tech mentors. We've been getting students into their first tech jobs since 2006, with more than 2,500 through our platform in the last ten years alone. We've run over a thousand events since 2017, and more than 11,000 students have turned up to them. We know how to run a room.

A mentor standing beside a student team at a table covered in sticky notes, with a to do, doing, done board behind them

2006

The year we started getting students into their first tech jobs.

2,500+

Students into jobs through our platform in the last ten years.

1,000+

Events we've run since 2017.

11,000+

Students who have turned up to them.

[TODO: mentor names and one-line bios]

Ten weeks over the summer break.

A commitment of at least four hours each afternoon, Monday to Friday.

A room in central Wellington.

A team you'll be matched into. We put teams together on purpose, because who you build with matters.

You don't need an idea. Finding one is part of the work.

You and your team go out and talk to real people.
You find something that's broken.
You build something to fix it.
Then you find out whether anyone actually wants it.

A student team around a table with laptops and sticky notes, working through a problem together

Nobody hands you tickets. Nobody grades you. You'll use AI tools the way working teams do now, and you'll learn where they help and where they don't.

We're not looking for founders. We're looking for people who want to build and want to learn.

Most of you won't end up with a company, but all of you will end up with a story worth telling.

The room is open all day. The afternoons are when everyone's in.

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Mornings

Room open

Afternoons

Everyone inFour hours

Demo dayFour hours

Mornings

Afternoons

Mon

Room open

Everyone inFour hours

Tue

Room open

Everyone inFour hours

Wed

Room open

Everyone inFour hours

Thu

Room open

Everyone inFour hours

Fri

Room open

Demo dayFour hours

Mentors drop in through the week to work with teams.

Regular talks cover marketing, product design, resilience, AI in practice, and practical skills, like how to phone a stranger and ask for something.

A small team gathered around a laptop in a meeting room, one member pointing at a map on the screen

Why every afternoon? Side projects usually die because people stop turning up. Here, everyone turns up, so the work keeps moving.

Not a poster. Not a report. The actual thing.

On the last night, your team demos a working product to a room of people who hire.

It's the deadline that makes it real, and it's the night people learn your name. [DATE]

Demos are a team effort. If presenting isn't your thing, don't worry. Someone on your team will love doing it.

The Foundry runs on the generosity of Wellington's tech community. There are three ways to help.

Lend us a room.

No room, no summer. We need a self-contained space for 10 weeks, open during business hours. Your empty floor becomes the room where it happens. We'll run it properly: programme leaders on site whenever it's open, fixed hours, public liability insurance [CONFIRM], and a hard end date of [DATE].

Talk to Ruth: ruth@summeroftech.co.nz

Mentor a team.

Give The Foundry's teams a few hours a week. You bring the experience of having built and shipped real products, and they bring the energy. A generation of graduates had the rug pulled out from under them, and this is a direct way to help NZ tech get back on its feet.

Talk to Ruth: ruth@summeroftech.co.nz

Provide LLM tokens.

Up to 100 people learning to build with your tools, in public, for 10 weeks. We'll allocate credits per team, so everyone's covered to the end.

Talk to Ruth: ruth@summeroftech.co.nz

Applying takes a bit of effort. That's deliberate.

Tell us who you are, why you want in, and that you can commit to 10 weeks of afternoons. We're asking for commitment because your team will be counting on you.

You're welcome to use AI for your application, but make sure it honestly reflects who you are.

Apply now

[TODO: apply mechanism]

Who can apply: Students with a published 2026 Summer of Tech profile who are in good standing for 2026 events.
What we're looking for: You communicate well in English.
You're self-motivated.
You enjoy working collaboratively in a team.
You do what you say you'll do.
You have a way to cover your costs over summer, whether that's savings or a job outside the afternoons.
Applications close: [DATE]