Charles Anderson

Contributing writer

Charles Anderson is a journalist who looks for stories all over the show, but he ended up in Nelson because it's the centre of the universe.

Future
Aug 12, 2019

The designer fighting to debias artificial intelligence, before it's too late

Ana Arriola has made a career at the forefront of product design, helping to create everything from the first iPhone to the infamous Edison blood testing machine. Now she has turned her eye to harnessing the potential of AI.

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Future
Aug 5, 2019

Why this man says the problems of today will be solved by the tools of tomorrow

Bruce Mau believes that far from being a hopeless case, the future of the planet is in safe hands. Why? Because he looks at the issues the world faces as design problems.

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Future
Jul 25, 2019

The corporate rebel who convinced IKEA to imagine a future without furniture

From travelling the world pondering her existence to convincing a Swedish furniture giant to back a venture looking at the future of living, Carla Cammilla Hjort has lived several lives.

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Future
Jul 14, 2019

He turned a radical idea into $5 billion. This is what he learned along the way

Ahead of his trip to NZ for the Future of the Future, the man behind Kickstarter shares a few secrets.

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Future
Jul 3, 2019

The secret plot to rewire the brain of New Zealand business

Next month some of the most high-powered people in the world are coming to Auckland. Charles Anderson spoke to the organisers of the Future of the Future conference about how they pulled it off.  

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Business
Feb 8, 2018

Sharesies makes its data look so good I want to invest

With its bright pineapples and 'kiwifruit brown', Sharesies has changed the visual game for investments. Can the startup teach banks some new tricks?

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Society
Feb 4, 2018

The most badass photograph ever taken in New Zealand

Boxers, a hairdresser, a stuffed kiwi, an accordion player, a gun, a newspaper, a lute, and a stack of whiskey bottles. Charles Anderson discovers the story behind this portrait of a unique part of New Zealand history.

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Parents
Jan 31, 2018

Neverland: A dad takes his daughter on a road trip

Every year Charles Anderson takes his daughter on a road trip around his home region. For the third such trip of her young life, he tries, and fails, to go camping in the Marlborough Sounds.

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Society
Dec 14, 2017

‘They are going after the last fish’: Michael Field on the race for Pacific tuna

Michael Field, whose book The Catch helped expose the labour and human rights abuses in New Zealand’s fishing industry, discusses his new investigation into illegal fishing practices in the Pacific.

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Unsettled
Aug 28, 2017

The unsettling of the Kiwi dream

Tired of clickbait and myth, Charles Anderson set out to find the real story behind New Zealand’s housing crisis, creating a major interactive documentary premiering on The Spinoff today, funded by New Zealand on Air.

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AMN8 2017
Feb 16, 2017

AMN8 Queenstown: ‘You followed your dreams and it all worked out’

Three women at the forefront of nano science discussed their work and the hurdles they faced during the AMN8 conference this week.

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AMN8 2017
Feb 15, 2017

AMN8 Queenstown: taking the plunge from lab to marketplace

As the government doubles down on trying to get good science into the marketplace, how are scientists preparing for the commercial world?

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AMN8 2017
Feb 15, 2017

AMN8 Queenstown: teaching science through a soccer ball, with a dash of apocalypse

Bioengineer Albert Folch uses football to kick off children's scientific curiosity. Charles Anderson watches the AMN8 guest work his magic at a Queenstown primary school.

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AMN8 2017
Feb 14, 2017

AMN8 Queenstown: The NZ students uncovering the secrets of solar cell technology at Oxbridge

Among the 500 delegates who have descended on the AMN8 conference in Queenstown from around the world are two New Zealand students who have taken their studies abroad. In his third blog post from AMN8, the advanced materials and nanotechnology conference hosted by The MacDiarmid Institute, Charles Anderson talks to them.

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AMN8 2017
Feb 14, 2017

AMN8 Queenstown: The man who unboiled an egg: inspiring science behind the viral research

The inventor of the Vortex Fluid Device tells Charles Anderson how the machine that famously converted a boiled egg back into its original state could have huge implications.

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AMN8 2017
Feb 13, 2017

AMN8 Queenstown: a nano-solution to a toothy problem

Dr Carla Meledandri promises that the photograph of decaying teeth is the only 'gross' one that she will show this morning, reports Charles Anderson in his second blog post from AMN8, the advanced materials and nanotechnology conference hosted by The MacDiarmid Institute, in Queenstown.

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Partners
Feb 13, 2017

AMN8 Queenstown: talking superconductor sandwiches at 25,000 feet

Charles Anderson is in Queenstown for AMN8 – the advanced materials and nanotechnology conference hosted by The MacDiarmid Institute. In his first blog from the event, he enjoys a heaven-sent introduction to the field from Ben Mallett on the flight south.

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AMN8 2017
Feb 12, 2017

The incredible possibilities of the new thermopower generation

By embracing the thermoelectric potential of polymers, Rachel Segalman is pursuing a new frontier in the use of power to heat or cool. A speaker at the AMN8 conference in Queenstown, she talks to Charles Anderson

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AMN8 2017
Feb 10, 2017

Soaking up the sun: how a miracle mineral may hold the key to a solar energy revolution

The unique properties of Perovskite provide hope for a wholly sustainable future, 'propelling the next stage of human advancement', says Henry Snaith, a a guest at next week's AMN8 conference in Queenstown.

Read on.

AMN8 2017
Feb 7, 2017

How tiny diamonds could forever change the face of medicine

First discovered in atomic bomb testing, nanodiamonds could prove crucial to a range of technologies that change, if not save, lives. Charles Anderson talks to nanoscientist Amanda Barnard, a guest at the AMN8 conference in Queenstown.

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AMN8 2017
Jan 27, 2017

Unpeeling the nano onion: Silvia Giordani on the potential for a massive, tiny breakthrough in cancer treatment

For Italian scientist Silvia Giordani, the battle against cancer cells takes place at a scale 50,000 times thinner than a human hair. A guest at February’s AMN8 conference in Queenstown, she talks to Charles Anderson

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AMN8 2017
Jan 24, 2017

‘It looks like magic’ – David Leigh on the gobsmacking potential of molecular motors

Smaller than a pinhead, the machines in Professor David A Leigh's lab are created by chemistry that manipulates the properties of tiny elements to create motion. Leigh, who is coming to NZ for February's AMN8 conference, talks to Charles Anderson

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AMN8 2017
Dec 19, 2016

Zoom in. Keep zooming. Don’t stop. On New Zealand and the nano-revolution

Ahead of February's AMN8 conference, Charles Anderson talks to some of the scientists at the vanguard of nanomaterial innovation and entrepreneurship in New Zealand.

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Unsponsored
Dec 3, 2016

Drink yourself for bliss? The rise and fall of beer in New Zealand

Once a bastion of Kiwi masculinity, the backbone of the working class, beer's hallowed place in New Zealand culture is no more. Charles Anderson traces the long decline of the national drink.

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Books
Feb 18, 2016

‘A journalist is someone who leaves the office and actually talks to people’

Charles Anderson - the best exponent of multi-platform long-form exploding plastic inevitable journalism in New Zealand - appraises a brilliant new book by a Guardian journalist.

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