World-first AI community education hub thriving in Nelson
Take a stroll through the heart of the South Island city of Nelson and you may be surprised to come across a new ‘store’ on the block that’s being hailed as a world-first in the field of artificial intelligence.
The store is the Nelson AI Sandbox – a community education hub where anyone can walk in off the street to experience free, guided, hands-on learning about the latest global AI tools and applications in comfortable surroundings with assistance from a team of local experts.
“I like to think of it as a public library for AI,” says co-founder and chief enthusiast at the Sandbox, Richard Brudvik-Lindner, who is also a teacher at Nelson College and has an impressive career history working in technology innovation and communication.
“As far as we’ve been able to unearth, nobody else in the world has created a free community space solely for educating, empowering and helping the public adapt to the AI world. There are plenty of people out there offering similar components for sale, but having a free shop-front space like this is a world-first,” he says.
Since launching in March 2024, the Nelson AI Sandbox has grown a strong public profile offering personal consultations, free public presentations and workshops, and group tutorial sessions about the promise and perils of AI, including a recent event attended by around 140 locals.
One of the friendly faces that greets you as you enter the Sandbox is Liam Goodger, a former student of Richard’s. Liam finished high school in 2023 and is heading to university later this year to study computer science but works at the Sandbox full-time for now.
“There are two ways to engage with the Sandbox. You either schedule an appointment with me, or you just walk in and ask what you want to know about AI,” says Liam.
“We pay for a range of AI tools that we have on laptops to show people what they can do, what they’re not good for, and how to use them. We also offer general advice, especially about the risks and concerns that many people have about AI.”
Since opening, Liam says they average around a dozen sessions every day either for individuals, businesses, or walk-in enquiries – and have reached about 6,000 people in the five months the Sandbox has been open.
“When we started, we were featured in the local newspaper a few times. We’ve also been active on our social media channels and are reaching out to businesses inviting them to come in, while asking people to spread the word, making sure they know about us.”
“Most people stay for around 45 minutes, and at times it does get quite busy, so we’ve been very happy with the uptake. There’s clearly a lot of interest, with some people returning for a second, third or fourth visit. The word is really starting to spread,” he says.
So how did the globally unique space find an unlikely home in the heart of New Zealand’s second-oldest city? It all started with an idea of Richard’s, following the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022.
A former PR manager for Microsoft in the US, Richard moved his family to the Nelson suburb of Golden Bay in the late 1990s following growing disillusionment with his highly stressful job, a long daily commute, and the desire for a higher quality of life for his young children.
Before leaving the US, Richard retrained as a high school teacher and got a job soon after he arrived in Nelson. While he loved his new career, Richard maintained a deep interest in global technology trends.
“I worked at Microsoft at a transformational time for computing with the launch of Windows 95 and seeing the PC become a consumer device. This was soon followed by the Internet tidal wave that caused an even greater transformation to all our lives,” he says.
“Then, in late 2022, I saw what was happening with ChatGPT and realised that the world would soon be riding a similar wave with AI, but even more so.
“As I talked with people in Nelson about this, we started to think about how we could create something that allowed our community to not only adapt to AI, but embrace it, and be enabled by it, in a way that could put us ahead of other cities in New Zealand and be transformational for our economy.”
One person that Richard spoke to was Mark Houghton-Brown, one of the two founders of the Nelson AI Institute, a venture capital studio for artificial intelligence founded in 2019 with a loan from the Provincial Growth Fund.
“We thought if we could create an unintimidating place with a storefront, where anyone in the community could come in and get some hands-on experience with AI tools, we could ultimately build the knowledge economy in Nelson and also help reactivate the CBD.”
After a few months of careful planning and hard work by volunteers setting up the space near the city’s Saturday market, the Nelson AI Sandbox launched with a grand opening that welcomed the public, politicians and community leaders alike.
“We now have a group of about 20 volunteers of all ages helping run the place. Our aspiration is to eventually be open from 11.00am until 2.00am, seven days a week, and welcome people aged anywhere from seven to 77,” says Richard.
“It’s intentionally an intergenerational space. We want young and old people interacting here, because we have many elderly people in Nelson who can often feel shut out of technology. This is why it doesn’t look like an office or a commercial enterprise. We want it to be approachable and inviting, so that everybody feels welcome here.”
However, Richard’s ambitions for the Sandbox stretch much wider than just education on AI.
“This is all about maintaining the high quality of life that we have here in Nelson. That’s a big, important part of what we’re trying to do with the Sandbox,” he says.
“Nelson is a truly beautiful place, but we have an ever-growing number of people over 65 and a declining number of people under 16. We also have the highest number of scientists and researchers per capita in New Zealand, and a lot of people with PhDs – but we’re also second lowest in productivity in the nation.
“As a result, we have the lowest economic growth forecast in the country right now – so we believe helping the people of Nelson understand and utilise AI will, in turn, help address some of these challenges.
“Nelson is wedged on a relatively narrow strip of land between the sea and the hills. We have lots of extractive industries, such as forestry, fishing and farming – things that are very land intensive or natural resources intensive.
“Because we have so many smart and capable people in this community, we’re focused on doing more than just being an extractive economy. Building an innovation economy – a knowledge economy – makes a lot of sense for Nelson,” says Richard.
Although officially a subsidiary of the Nelson AI Institute, initial funding for the Sandbox came from Shuttlerock, a digital creative company headquartered in Nelson.
“Our next big funder was Ngāti Kuia, and, perhaps surprisingly, Spa World, the biggest spa company in Australasia, which also has a Nelson-based HQ. As a company, they have really embraced AI, so wanted to help us out.”
In total, 30 companies, including non-profits, schools and local government entities, signed up as supporters.
“We took the initiative ourselves to set this up. We didn’t wait for government, or anyone, for that matter. We scrubbed up, painted the space ourselves and made something from scratch. Basically, we’re flying the plane while we’re building it, with that whole startup mentality. That’s how we’ve always operated.”
Today, the Sandbox is looking for more grants, having received some funding from Spark and Techstep, funded from MBIE.
“This is our pilot phase, but if we can secure more funding, we hope to be in operation for a full year by February 2025,” says Richard.
“We’ve had a lot of generous in-kind donations too. Our storefront space is rent-free, for example, and all the furniture is provided by home staging company, Open Home Ready.”
With the Sandbox now well-established in the CBD, Richard and his team are planning on adding bespoke AI training for industry to their service offering, as well as workshops on ethical use of AI and avoiding AI scams.
“These things are especially important for older people, who may find technology confusing. There are dangers with AI, of course, but there are also real opportunities. We want to maximise the positive things that come out of utilising AI in our own little sphere, while minimising the negatives,” he says.
“Our main goal is to empower the community. AI is happening worldwide, and we want Nelsonsians to be able to capitalise on this – for the prosperity of all.”
Story by Brendan Boughen in partnership with Nelson Regional Development Agency (NRDA)
Innovation Nation is an annual series celebrating stories of innovation and diversity in entrepreneurship from around New Zealand.
