Bring AI to life on your stage.
Blake Harkness is an AI engineer and speaker who turns the hype around artificial intelligence into something your audience can actually use. Practical, high-energy talks for conferences and events across New Zealand and beyond.
Speaker bio and past engagements: blakeharkness.com
See Blake on stage
A speaker who builds what he talks about
An engineer first, speaker second
Blake builds and ships AI systems every week as a fractional AI engineer. Every talk is grounded in real, working examples - not recycled headlines.
A next-generation voice
A young engineer at the frontier of AI, bringing the perspective of the people actually building agents and automation today.
Backed by NZ’s AI community
Founder of Young Kiwis in AI, New Zealand’s largest young AI community, with meetups in 11+ cities. Blake is plugged into the conversations shaping AI in Aotearoa.
Tailored to your audience
From boardrooms to dev teams to students, talks are pitched to the room - technical depth or plain-language clarity, your call.
From mechatronics to the main stage
Blake is a mechatronic engineer turned AI engineer who fell for AI’s potential to change how people work - then made it his mission to help others get there. He runs Young Kiwis in AI, sits on AI advisory groups for the AI Forum NZ and Engineering New Zealand, and brings that real, current experience to every stage he steps on.
Recent speaking
Upcoming
- 16 September 2026AI Forum NZ - AEC Working Group webinar - AI in China: Firsthand Insights from the NZ Delegation Online (Zoom)
- 17 September 2026UC Business School - Graduating into a World of AI: how to turn it into your unfair advantage University of Canterbury, Christchurch
- 25 September 2026IFAA Conference 2026 - Making Magic Christchurch
FeaturedNZ IT & AI Job Forum 2026
Graduating into a World of AI: From Student to Founder in 18 Months
Bed & Breakfast Association NZ Conference
Elevating Your Online Presence with AI
FeaturedM2 AI Summit
Using AI to Amplify Your Team
Survey and Spatial New Zealand
AI in survey and spatial workflows
Engineering New Zealand
AI for engineering workflows
Christchurch AI Meetup
Hands-on with Claude and the Model Context Protocol
Young Kiwis in AI Meetups
Growing the AI community in Aotearoa
Hear Blake on the mic
New Zealand China Council Podcast
A window into China's AI and robotics
M2 Magazine Podcast
Using AI To Make Your Team Great
The Business of Tech
China's AI and Robot Revolution
The Tech'o'Space Podcast
Powering Innovation: Engineering AI for Real-World Impact
The AI Corner
Blake Harkness Reveals How He's Transforming MainPower with AI
The Global Seat
AI, Jobs, and The Future: What Young People Need to Know
Talks your audience will act on
What it means to start your career when AI is rewriting the rules.
A talk for students and new graduates stepping into a workforce being reshaped by AI. Blake - a young engineer who did exactly this - shares how to stay valuable, which skills actually matter, and how to use AI as an unfair advantage rather than something to fear.
- How to future-proof your skills in an AI-driven job market
- Using AI as a force multiplier in your study and work
- Where the real opportunities are for the next generation
A practical, build-alongside session on modern AI tooling.
A workshop-style session for technical audiences who want to go beyond chat. Blake walks through AI agents, the Model Context Protocol, and automation patterns, with live builds and real examples teams can take straight back to work.
- How AI agents and MCP work in practice
- Automation patterns that save real hours
- A starting point teams can build on immediately
Have a theme in mind? Blake builds the talk around your event.
Every audience and event is different. Blake shapes the content, depth and examples around your conference theme, industry and goals - from a room of business owners to a technical team, students or a mixed crowd. Share your brief and he'll craft a session that lands.
- Built around your theme, industry and audience
- Pitched to the room - technical depth or plain language
- Keynote, workshop, panel or fireside - your format
Practical AI, not fluff
Blake’s AI presentation was among the most frequently cited as the most valuable session of the conference - consistently described as practical, relevant and immediately useful for delegates’ businesses.
Blake set the standard high for innovation - defect detection with drones, chatbots saving teams 80-90% of time on repetitive tasks, and voice assistants for Alzheimer’s patients. I’d strongly recommend him, whether collaborating on a podcast or going deep on AI and mechatronics.
Booking questions
Planning an event? Let’s talk.
Tell me about your audience and theme, and I’ll come back with how we can make your AI session the talk of the event.
Enquire about speakingLooking for consulting instead? See how I can help →
Last updated 9 September 2026 - added upcoming engagements for September 2026
What people say
We brought Blake in to run an AI workshop for our team, and it was excellent. He struck a great balance between explaining concepts clearly and keeping things practical, encouraged questions and made the whole session feel very engaging. Highly recommend if you're looking to upskill your team on AI in a way that actually sticks.
Blake is amazing, his knowledge of AI is really impressive. He helped us become more confident with AI and showed us how to use it in our business. The training sessions were great, and he's very approachable and always happy to help. He also presented at our networking event and received fantastic feedback from everyone.