Raising the Bar

20 talks. 10 bars. 1 night.

Thanks to all our volunteers, hosts, speakers, MCs and over 1500 of our alumni and friends who came together for the inaugural Raising the Bar Auckland event.

Be sure to check out the photo gallery, podcast and videos from the night.

Videos

What is Raising the Bar?

Raising the Bar is a worldwide initiative aimed at making education a part of a city’s popular culture. It is a series of events held in bars on the same night.

Raising the Bar began in New York in 2013. It is a social start-up, which describes its goal as ‘raising the bar on the content people consume in their everyday lives’, and ‘bringing intellectual content to the millennial generation via bar talks by notable University professors and industry leaders’.

It has also been held in San Francisco, Hong Kong, Sydney, London, and most recently, Melbourne. The hope is to offer access to intellectual content to over 5 million people worldwide by 2017.

For the University of Auckland it is an opportunity to raise awareness of our talented researchers and their work while reaching a diverse audience in an unconventional setting. It also aligns with our responsibility to disseminate research to the wider public.We have collaborated with bars in close proximity to one another in the hope that attendees may be able to visit more than one venue on the night.

Raising the Bar Auckland was a great success and will return next year.