The Hunter Innovation Festival Maitland Roadshow, held with Maitland City Council on 30 Sept 2026, put advanced manufacturing, skills and founder experience on the same table. Jeff Smith, Andy Olrich, Evan Jones, Professor Thomas Nann and Jacqui Daley covered connected innovation, the Hunter Net Zero Manufacturing Centre of Excellence, university spinouts and why industrial firms remain the world’s best-kept secrets.

Last Friday’s Hunter iF Innovators Lunch in partnership with HMA was a masterclass in local brilliance. From EV manufacturing and product design to inspiring the next generation of apprentices, local innovators came together to connect and collaborate. Read on to see how we’re building the future of the Hunter region.

The Measured Marketer joins Hunter Innovation Festival 2026 as Marketing Partner. Join us in our 24th year as we drive Australian innovation and growth, and Jacqui Daley's new book BRAG.

The cities that successfully reinvented themselves after heavy industry share some characteristics that are easy to romanticise and harder to replicate. Each of those places eventually found a new story. The question the Hunter is now asking, whether consciously or not, is what its story will be.

Every regional transition story eventually has to answer the same question: who is actually doing the work?

In the Hunter, the answer is emerging from a cluster of companies, researchers and institution builders who are, with varying degrees of fanfare, constructing the economic infrastructure of whatever comes next.

There is a temptation, when writing about the energy transition, to tell a clean story. Coal exits, renewables enter, workers retrain, the future arrives on schedule. It is a tidy narrative. It is also not what is happening in the Hunter.

What is actually happening is more interesting, and more honest.

The rules changed. The tools you used to fund your breakthroughs, structure your R&D, and plan your next product just shifted. At the June Innovators Lunch, three speakers made the case for acting now rather than waiting for the dust to settle.

The Federal Government has issued a new, urgent Statement of Expectations to the NRF Corporation. The message is clear: stop acting like a traditional commercial investor, start prioritising national impact over short-term profit, and get capital flowing immediately.

This is part 1 of a four-part series on the Hunter Region's economic and cultural transition. The series explores the heritage that shaped the region, the transformation currently underway, the innovators driving it, and the question of what kind of place the Hunter wants to become. 

I visited Josh, Nat, and the incredible design and building team at Design Anthology’s Gateshead workshop. The Hunter IF team loves seeing world-class product design and hardware prototyping right here in Newcastle and the Hunter region. Here is how they turn wild ideas into commercial reality.

The global clean energy race is accelerating, and the Hunter stands at a critical crossroads. We possess the industrial legacy and infrastructure to lead, but ambition isn't enough. To out-deliver the world, we must harness the power of dogged collaboration to execute on our potential.

Stop waiting for AI to mature and start building with it. Today at Hunter iF, we gathered Newcastle's best tinkerers and makers to do exactly that. We believe in the power of together. Stripping away the sales pitches and theory, we traded ideas, got weird, and shipped real products. Discover the ground truths from the AI coalface and the no-code tools you need to start building today.

At Hunter iF, we are passionate about driving innovation, fostering collaboration, and empowering the bright minds that make up our local ecosystem. That is why we are absolutely thrilled to support the official launch of WITH (Women in Technology Hunter).

The Ship Isn't Coming was the provocation on the door of April's Innovators Lunch. The full argument is both more unsettling and more urgent. Global supply chains are fracturing, Asia's energy appetite is growing, and the Hunter is sitting on assets most regions can only envy. The question is whether we're moving fast enough to build something that doesn't depend on what arrives by sea.

The March Hunter iF Innovators Lunch brought together some of the most compelling voices in Australian Blue Tech to ask a simple question: is the Hunter ready to seize this moment?

Hunter iF Ltd is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Kobalt.io for the 2026 Innovators Lunch Series. Kobalt.io joins an esteemed group of anchor partners, including the University of Newcastle, Franke Hyland, and NTP Talent, to foster a secure and resilient innovation ecosystem in the Hunter.

Hunter iF Innovators Lunch: 80 founders discussed scaling from MVP to global capital, 3ME Tech's wins, investor tips, and how to blow a $50k grant.

The Hunter is now Australia’s knowledge engine. See why 2026 is the year of Hard-Tech and how we're winning top talent. Don't just watch the future happen.

The Hunter region has long been the powerhouse of New South Wales, and the recent announcement that YZ has successfully managed the grid connection for the Wollar Solar Farm marks a pivotal moment in the region's energy evolution.