A new Waikato collaborative organisation for IT businesses and professionals will launch on February 16.
CultivateIT has been in the making for the past 12 months. Hamilton East MP David Bennett and NetValue chief executive Graham Gaylard are among the founders of the CultivateIT Incorporated Society.
"It's a great initiative for the Waikato region, especially for Hamilton, and it's something we've been working on for a while," said Bennett.
"We got a group of IT companies in Hamilton together about a year ago, and we had a couple of meetings and proposed that in Hamilton we create a sector group around the IT industry to promote what's going on in the city and to develop any initiatives that may come from it."
CultivateIT be will made up of a collection of small and medium-sized companies which may otherwise face more difficulty holding a position in the market than large corporates.
David Bennett said IT is the future of Hamilton.