Building with AI | TRG AI Engineering 0.2

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Join us for our June AI Engineering Meetup, where we'll hear from local builders using AI in real projects—both for fun and for serious development workflows.
This month we're diving into two very different but equally practical sides of AI engineering: building AI-powered user experiences and running powerful models locally.

🎤 Talks

Designing with AI: Building a Hobby Project with GenUI
by Rebecca Milne, Development Team Lead

Rebecca is talk about how they're using AI in a hobby side project, specifically around GenUI and AI driven design. They'll share what they've learnt, what worked, what didn't, and how AI genuinely helped them!

Running Local LLMs: Why, When, and How
by Matías Iacono, Practice Lead at Mercury

Cloud models aren't the only option anymore. This talk explores the growing ecosystem of local LLMs, including the tools, hardware, and workflows that make it possible to run capable AI models on your own machine.

⚗️ What to expect

A series of short, practical talks from people in the community covering:
AI workflows they’re using regularly
Tools and setups that are actually working
Where AI is saving time (and where it isn’t)
Lessons learned from trying to apply AI in real scenarios

This isn’t theory or hype—just real examples from people building and experimenting.

👥 Who it’s for

Software engineers
Product builders
Anyone experimenting with AI in their work or side projects

Whether you’re deep into it or just getting started, you’ll get a clearer sense of what’s actually useful.

📍 Location

Basestation Coworking Space (enter through folk cafe)
148 Durham Street
Tauranga
Street and Council parking is free from 5pm

🚀 Want to contribute?

If you’ve got a workflow, project, or experiment you’d be open to talking about (even briefly), get in touch. Half-finished ideas are very welcome.