Auckland
Where Rapido, TheColab.ai and PO2Order are built. Claude Code Auckland #1 at 2degrees HQ (Dec 2025), then the AUT meetup where about 900 applied (Jul 2026). Next one: 30 September at AUT.
Where the work happened
Waiheke
Living with AI, a community workshop, plus an interview on Waiheke Radio.
Hamilton
Connect Waikato: Human Connection in an AI World. A talk on AI agents.
Wellington
Claude for Business with about 200 people. Then New Zealand’s first Claude Impact Lab at Wellington City Council: 10 teams, 10 civic prototypes in a day.
Tokyo
Code with Claude. The takeaways became the July Auckland meetup.
Birmingham
Grew up here. Team leader at Sainsbury’s while studying, then a first-class degree at Coventry University.
- Ventures
- Community & stage
- Code & builds
- Clients
- Investing
- Claude Code Auckland #1
- Kaleidoscope Future Leaders Forum
- Claude for Business, Wellington
- NZ Tech Expo
- Code with Claude, Tokyo
- Claude Impact Lab
- Agentic AI Retail Summit
- Connect Waikato
- Living with AI, Waiheke
- DairyNZ farmer workshop
- Claude Meetup Auckland, AUT
01 About
From Birmingham to Aotearoa
I’m a technical founder in Auckland. I build software that plugs AI into the way New Zealand businesses already work, and I help run the country’s Claude community.
I grew up in Birmingham, led a team at Sainsbury’s while I studied, and finished with a first-class degree from Coventry University. In 2016 I joined Acumen in the Accredo ERP world, starting in support and moving into .NET development.
I started Holt Web Solutions in 2017 and have been a full-time founder since 2018. Rapido came next: years of Accredo know-how turned into the AI layer on top of it. Since 2025 I’ve been building TheColab.ai with Simon Conroy.
- 2008Team leader at Sainsbury’s, Birmingham, while studying
- 2015First-class BSc (Hons) Business Information Technology, Coventry University
- 2016Moved to New Zealand. Support, then .NET developer at Acumen, in the Accredo ERP world
- 2017Started Holt Web Solutions
- 2018Project & Operations Manager at Acumen Online, then full-time founder
- 2019Launched Rapido
- 2025Co-hosted the first Claude Code meetup in Auckland. Co-founded TheColab.ai
- 2026Claude Community Ambassador for New Zealand
- 10+ years building on Accredo ERP
- 10,000+ Rapido portal users
- 1,000+ TheColab community members
- 2018 full-time founder since
02 Work
The work, all of it
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VenturesFounder & engineer
Rapido
10,000+ portal users
The modern AI layer on top of Accredo ERP: customer ordering portals, PO-to-order automation and integrations. Trades under Holt Web Solutions.
rapido.co.nz (Rapido) -
VenturesCo-founder & Technical Lead
TheColab.ai
1,000+ members
New Zealand’s community-driven AI consultancy, co-founded with Simon Conroy.
More below (TheColab.ai) -
Code & buildsBuilder, 2026
Kev and my data lake
My own AI chief of staff. An agent that works from a self-hosted data lake of my email, calendar, meetings and code, so it can research, draft and build alongside me. Private, and running on my own hardware.
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VenturesCo-founder & CTO
PO2Order
Its own company, PO2Order Holdings Ltd. Emailed purchase orders become draft sales orders in the ERP or Shopify.
po2order.com (PO2Order) -
ClientsClient build, 2025
Air New Zealand
The “Replace My Bag” portal, built with Rapido.
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Community & stageAmbassador since Feb 2026
Claude Community NZ
~900 applications
From 150 people in one room in December 2025 to about 900 applications for one Auckland night in July 2026.
The timeline (Claude Community NZ) -
VenturesFounder
Colab Talent
AI talent. Matched properly. An AI hiring platform, soft-launched in August 2026.
thecolab.ai/talent (Colab Talent) -
Code & buildsCreator and lead, 2026
The For Good Project
An open research commons where people and AI agents work on New Zealand’s biggest societal problems. Includes an NZ poverty baseline report.
github.com/thecolab-ai (The For Good Project) -
ClientsClient build, 2019-23
Starbucks NZ
Supplier ordering integration.
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VenturesFounder
PricePulse
Compares supermarket prices across Woolworths, Pak’nSave and New World.
pricepulse.co.nz (PricePulse) -
Code & buildsFounder and builder, 2026
OpenClaw Academy
Independent release intelligence, security advisories and tested guides for people running OpenClaw agents.
openclaw.academy (OpenClaw Academy) -
ClientsAdvisor to the CIO, 2022-23
NXP
Technical advisory: board business cases, BigQuery and Looker, Shopify Plus B2B.
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Community & stageCo-host, Wellington
Claude Impact Lab
10 prototypes
New Zealand’s first. 10 teams built 10 civic emergency-information prototypes in a day.
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VenturesFounder, since 2017
Holt Web Solutions
My operating company. Rapido trades under it.
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ClientsIntegration, 2025-26
Nexus Logistics
Integrating Ports of Auckland with Nexus Logistics’ Dynamics 365.
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Code & buildsgithub.com/adam91holt
Open source
orchestrated-ai-articles (128 stars) and clawdspace (44 stars), plus guides and SDKs.
The repos (Open source) -
Community & stageCo-organiser, 2023-24
MongoDB User Group
Co-ran the Auckland MongoDB User Group. Rapido was in the MongoDB Startup Accelerator in 2019.
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InvestingAngel investment
DroneTrust
New Zealand’s largest CAA Part 141 online drone training provider. I’m also its Head of Technology.
dronetrust.co.nz (DroneTrust)
03 Co-founder & Technical Lead
TheColab.ai
New Zealand’s community-driven AI consultancy. It grew out of the Claude Code meetups. I co-founded it with Simon Conroy in 2025.
1,000+ community members
- Workshops and AI pilots for New Zealand businesses
- Weekly online community catch-ups
- An open library of about 146 New Zealand data skills for AI agents
- The For Good Project, an open research commons
- Colab Talent, AI hiring from the community
04 Claude
Claude Community NZ
Claude Community Ambassador for New Zealand since February 2026, alongside Chris Watson in Wellington. We went from one room of 150 people to about 900 applications for a single Auckland night in seven months.
From 150 to about 900
- 150 in the roomDec 2025, Auckland
- ~200 peopleMay 2026, Wellington
- ~900 appliedJul 2026, Auckland
- ~500 placesSep 2026, Auckland, upcoming
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Claude Code Auckland #1
2degrees HQ, Auckland
Co-host. Talk: Claude Code 101
Sponsored by Anthropic. About 150 in the room and 300+ registrations in five days.
Event page: Claude Code Auckland #1, 17 Dec 2025 -
Claude Cowork for Everyone
Auckland
Host
Event page: Claude Cowork for Everyone, 8 Apr 2026 -
Claude for Business
Wellington
Co-host & speaker
About 200 people.
Event page: Claude for Business, 27 May 2026 -
Code with Claude
Tokyo
Attended
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Claude Meetup Auckland
AUT, Auckland
Host. Takeaways from Code with Claude Tokyo
About 900 people applied for 350-380 seats.
Event page: Claude Meetup Auckland, 1 Jul 2026 -
Claude Impact Lab
Wellington City Council
Co-host
New Zealand’s first. 10 teams built 10 civic emergency-information prototypes in a day.
Event page: Claude Impact Lab, 8 Aug 2026 -
Claude Code for Developers
Auckland
Host
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Next
Claude Meetup Auckland
AUT, Auckland
Co-host. Lightning talk on live artifacts
About 500 places.
Event page: Claude Meetup Auckland, 30 Sep 2026
Plus weekly online community catch-ups, and 60 events hosted on Luma.
05 Stage
Speaking
I present to C-level leaders at some of New Zealand’s biggest companies.
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NZ Tech Expo
Speaker
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Kaleidoscope Future Leaders Forum
Keynote: “Stop Sprinkling AI. Start Rebuilding.”
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Connect Waikato: Human Connection in an AI World
Talk on AI agents, Hamilton
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Agentic AI Retail Summit
Speaker
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Living with AI
Community workshop on Waiheke, and an interview on Waiheke Radio Listen to the interview
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DairyNZ
AI workshop for farmers
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The AI Corner podcast
Guest on episode 43: What is OpenClaw / Clawdbot and its security risks Watch the episode
“Adam is regarded as one of the world’s leading Claude engineers and runs monthly Anthropic meetups across several New Zealand cities.”
MongoDB Doubles Down On Aotearoa MongoDB blog, 30 Nov 2023. Quoted as CEO of Rapido
06 Code
Open source and writing
github.com/adam91holt
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128 stars
Write-ups on multi-agent orchestration.
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44 stars
Self-hosted Docker sandboxes for agents, with Tailscale multi-node and optional GPU.
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A guide to Claude Code and MCP.
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A TypeScript SDK.
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NZ data skills library
About 146 skills that give AI agents New Zealand data: fuel, groceries, transport, weather, LINZ, Stats NZ and more. Built at TheColab.
Writing
- The “Neo Moment” for Business AILinkedIn, 20 Dec 2025
- Claude Code Weekly Report SummaryLinkedIn, 12 Dec 2025
- AI Shopping Agents Are About to Rewrite NZ RetailLinkedIn and TheColab blog, 3 Dec 2025
- Orchestrated AI articlesGitHub, 128 stars. Multi-agent systems, including “Kev’s Dream Team”. Featured on the OpenClaw showcase
- Revolutionising Accredo integrations with RapidoRapido blog, 7 May 2023
More on LinkedIn and the TheColab blog.
07 Investing
Angel investing
I back New Zealand founders early, especially technical and AI teams, and help hands-on with the technology.
Angel investment and Head of Technology
DroneTrust
New Zealand’s largest CAA Part 141 online drone training provider, training pilots since 2018, with a US arm for FAA. I’m also its Head of Technology.
Founders building in NZ, pitch me: mail@adamholt.co.nz
08 Toolkit
Skills and milestones
- AI engineering
- Claude CodeClaude Agent SDKMCP serversOpenAI Codexmulti-agent orchestrationagent skillsevals
- Full-stack
- TypeScriptNode.jsNext.jsAstroReactReact Native and ExpoSwiftPython.NET (earlier)
- Data & infrastructure
- PostgresMongoDBClickHouseCloudflare WorkersAWSDockerself-hosted infrastructure
- Integration
- Accredo ERP (API since v5)ShopifyHubSpotEDI and purchase-order automation
- Business
- Founder and operatorproductB2B SaaSAI adoption workshops and strategycommunity buildingpublic speaking
- First class BSc (Hons) Business Information Technology, Coventry University
- 10+ years building on Accredo ERP
- 2019 Rapido accepted into the MongoDB Startup Accelerator
- 2023-24 Co-organiser of the Auckland MongoDB User Group
- Feb 2026 Claude Community Ambassador for New Zealand
09 Contact