Digital People for Lunch!

Join Dr Mark Sagar for North Harbour Club’s February Lexus of North Shore Charity Lunch

North Harbour Club’s popular Lexus of North Shore Charity Lunch series kicks off in February next year, with a great guest speaker: Dr Mark Sagar of Soul Machines.

Mark is the co-founder and CEO of Soul Machines and Director of the Laboratory for Animate Technologies at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute.
When looking at influential and cutting-edge New Zealanders, you can't go past Dr Mark Sagar. The ground-breaking, double Academy Award winner, will join the North Harbour Club as the keynote speaker for the first 2022 Lexus of North Shore Charity Lunch to be held on Friday February 11th at North Harbour Stadium.
Mark and his team are bringing technology to life, pioneering the creation of autonomously animated virtual humans with virtual brains and nervous systems, capable of highly expressive face to face interaction and real-time learning and emotional response, to create the next generation of human interaction with artificial intelligence.
Soul Machines believe that in a more Digital World – Digital People can help you in millions of ways.
Mark has a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Auckland, and was a post-doctoral fellow at M.I.T. He previously worked as the Special Projects Supervisor at Weta Digital and Sony Pictures Imageworks and developed technology for the digital characters in blockbusters such Avatar, King Kong, and Spiderman 2. His pioneering work in computer-generated faces was recognised with two consecutive Scientific and Engineering Oscars in 2010 and 2011.
In 2019 Mark was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. We are honoured to have someone of his calibre speak at our first luncheon of the year.

Lexus of North Shore Charity Lunch – Friday February 11th at North Harbour Stadium. Secure you tickets or table today!
Visit: www.northharbourclub.co.nz or email: manager@northharbourclub.co.nz


New mid-year date for AIMES Award Gala Dinner

As has been the case for many events in late 2021, the North Harbour Club’s annual AIMES Awards Gala Dinner has fallen victim to Covid-19. The 2021 dinner has been rescheduled to May 2022, with the club making a decision that this mid-year period will also become a permanent time for the awards dinner – the club’s flagship event of the year.
The AIMES Awards Gala Dinner will be held on Friday 6th May 2022 at the Bruce Mason Centre. A special cocktail function announcing the AIMES Emerging Talent and Scholarship Awards will be held on the following Thursday (May 12th), with venue to be confirmed.
The AIMES Awards programme recognises excellence achieved by the young people of the region in the Arts, Innovation, Music, Education, Sport and Service to the Community. 2021 is the twenty-sixth year of these awards.


Issue 126 December-January 2021