The inaugural NZ RFID Pathfinder Group's After 5's function was held in Auckland's Heritage Hotel on June 25th to an audience of some 35 guests.

The function was sponsored by GS1 New Zealand under their EPCglobal banner. GS1, the global standards organisation is a member of the Pathfinder Group and their General Manager for Sector Development Gary Hartley is the Pathfinder Group's Secretary. Gary says that "GS1 were keen to host the first after 5's function as it was an ideal opportunity to give a brief presentation about GS1/ EPCglobal and what we do in the RFID space and to give an outline of our sponsored EPC/RFID field trip to Hong Kong/ Southern China that was hosted in mid May. There's a solid core of interest in RFID just now and being able to bring interested parties together in an informal, reasonably casual environment like the After 5's is a good way to meet the RFID community so to speak, share some thoughts and get the conversation going. I encourage others to host their own After 5's on their own premises - it doesn't cost much and it's good networking.