Celebrity chef Josh Emett will hold demonstrations three times daily in Kiwi's Best Kitchen, one of the busiest marquees at Fieldays.
Seminars are held throughout Fieldays. Guest speakers include Dairy New Zealand chief executive Tim Mackle, Minister of Primary Industries Nathan Guy, and Waikato University's professor of Agribusiness, Jacqueline Rowarth.
Many exciting competitions are also held, including tractor-pulling, fencing, the National Excavation competition, the Big Little Town Festival, Stihl logging, and the Kiwi No8 Wire competition. This year, Fieldays is launching a new Dragon's Den-style innovation, Pitch For Investment.
Soda, an entrepreneurship centre, will select up to 10 commercially viable inventions participating at the Fieldays Innovation Centre to showcase, and will support the inventors to get their invention pitch-ready for the judges.
The event will follow a similar format to the acclaimed Dragon's Den TV programme, where participants pitch their inventions to a panel of esteemed investors and business leaders in the hope of securing advice and investment.
The Fieldays Innovation Den judging panel will feature influential business moguls and investors from around New Zealand, including heavyweight Ray Thompson, who is also the New Zealand Angel Association chairman.
The event will be a highlight of the Innovation Centre and will give national inventors the chance to obtain knowledge about the business world and how to take their inventions into global markets, says Jon Calder, National Fieldays chief executive.
"Innovation has always been at the heart of Fieldays. It's one of the principles on which Fieldays was founded and we've seen a number of individuals and companies launch new products and innovations at Fieldays going on to achieve global success."
To find out more about the Innovation Den, and how to enter the Innovation Centre Competition, visit www.fieldays.co.nz/innovationcompetition2013
