Now
Founder & director, LUX Solar off-grid solar technology, Auckland.ACT candidate, Auckland CentralIndependent advisor — IP strategy, AI and technology risk
About Antonia
I work at the intersection where most deals, boards and policies go wrong: where technology, law and capital collide. I have built there, protected there, and now I am contesting there.
I build and commercialise deep technology. Co-founder and director of LUX Solar (2011–present), an off-grid solar technology company my husband and I built to seven figures without outside capital, automating off-grid solar design. Co-founder and founding director of Amy.app / Jaipuna, a venture-backed AI maths-tutoring startup (angel and seed funded, 2014–2017).
I make the judgment calls where technology, law and capital collide. Registered trans-Tasman patent attorney and solicitor, with an MSc in Computer Science (AI). As Director of IP & Innovation at Soul Machines, I grew the patent portfolio of one of New Zealand's leading AI companies to 300+ patent filings across more than 10 jurisdictions, in machine learning, human-computer interaction, computer graphics and animation. I ran the IP workstreams through Series B and through the company's sale. Corporate IP Star, Managing IP (2024, 2025, 2026) — New Zealand's only listing. Top-three finalist, 2024 Innovation Leadership Awards, for turning an in-house IP function from legal bureaucracy into a platform for the company's culture of innovation. Twelve months as a board observer with a VC-backed biotech, through the Institute of Directors' OnBoard programme.
I fight for rules that let human ingenuity thrive. ACT candidate for Auckland Central in the 2026 general election. I write and speak on AI regulation, intellectual property and innovation policy, including AI inventorship, deepfake law and machine-learning evidence. I am a first-generation New Zealander: my family left communist Bulgaria when I was two, which is a fairly direct education in what happens when the state decides what people may build, own and say.
Writing
AI, IP and policy
Does New Zealand need a specific law for deepfakes? — How existing law, from the Privacy Act to the Crimes Act and the Fair Trading Act, already catches much of the harm, and where the real gaps sit.
How to Cross-Examine an Algorithm — What lawyers and judges need to understand about machine-learning evidence before it decides a case.
The Robot Revolution: Re-Inventing Inventorship — AI inventorship: whether a machine can be named as an inventor, and what patent law does about it.
Intellectual Property in Higher Education: who owns student innovation? — How university IP policies allocate ownership of what students create, and why those settings matter for spin-outs.
On the legal profession
The Four Reasons Lawyers Resist Technology — Pretentiousness, pessimism, protectionism and passiveness: why the profession keeps treating new technology as a threat instead of an opportunity.
Lawyers talk a lot about technology — but how many are walking the talk? — The Law Association's Reweti Kohere on my four Ps, April 2024.
Talks, Panels and Seminars
Aotearoa AI Summit: AI and Intellectual Property: Navigating Challenges and Opportunities (September 2024)
Seeking Assurance: Understanding the Artificial Intelligence Attack Surface – CREST x ISC2 Seminar (March 2024)
Political Panel 2023 – Auckland Women Lawyers' Association (September 2023)
Generative AI – What does the Future Hold? – IPSANZ Seminar (September 2023)
World IP Day 2023 panel discussion. Women and IP – IPONZ & NZIPA (May 2023)
Strategies for Protecting Artificial Intelligence Invention – LESANZ (June 2022)
Artificial Intelligence & Intellectual Property in the Creative Industries Panelist – UK Intellectual Property Office & University of Exeter (November 2021)
In-House Legal IP Management: Developing an IP Strategy and Getting Everyone in the Company on Board – Legalwise In-House Counsel Conference (2021)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Patent Law – Legalwise Trade Marks and Patents Conference (2020)
The Great Reset: A Tech Perspective – Potentia (2020)
The Robot Revolution – Reinventing Inventorship – IPSANZ Seminar (2018)
Intellectual Property in Higher Education: Who owns student innovation – ANZELA Conference (2013)
Press
Managing IP / IP STARS — Corporate IP Star, New Zealand, 2026The Law Association — Will technology kill the billable hour?, May 2024
LawNews — Legislative gap leaves New Zealand exposed to deepfakes, March 2024
The Law Association — How generative AI will impact the way lawyers work, July 2023
My Story
In 2017, I was packing my bags for Sydney. One of Australia's best law firms had made me an offer, and I was ready to go. Then a New Zealand startup convinced me to stay. It showed me how the most beautiful little island at the bottom of the world could raise over $200 million dollars, rivalling the opportunities of Silicon Valley, London, or Sydney.The companies that keep our talent in New Zealand are creating something that the world wants: they solve real problems, and pay real wages. Volpara using AI to detect cancers, Xero empowering small business owners, Halter improving the cost and quality of our food. There is no reason why we can't have thousands more businesses like this. There is no reason why NZ can't be the most prosperous country in the Southern Hemisphere.I want New Zealand to be a place where innovation and technology drive abundance and prosperity, not anxiety. The biggest challenges and the biggest opportunities facing this country — productivity, wages, global competitiveness — will hinge on how we innovate, regulate, and respond to new technology. Get it right, and we unlock growth we haven't seen in generations. Get it wrong (through fear, overregulation, or ignorance) and we fall further behind.When it comes to emerging, powerful technologies such as AI, the media loves to exploit humanity's inbuilt fear of change and uncertainty with headlines that only focus on risks and fears. Risks exist, and should be managed - but we must not be blinded by this at the expense of the opportunity technology provides to change the world for the better - and solve problems in education, healthcare, transport, energy, and affordability.I didn't come to innovation through politics; I came to politics because I'd spent fifteen years watching what good and bad rules do to builders.My daughter Sofia and my son Christian will be making decisions about their own futures before I know it. I want New Zealand to be a country worth staying for — where they can find high-paying work that reflects the real value it adds to the world, where a great idea means access to global capital and skilled, driven teammates to build something great, and where success and ambition are celebrated.