Events

Diversity is the key to success and diverse leadership yeilds better business performance. Australia is one of the most ethnically diverse country in the world, and our startups should be the same. Here in Victoria, we want to challenge the norm and lead by embracing diversity in our startups - starting from the top.

The Focus on Diversity:

Our focus on Diversity in May will profile and showcase both leaders and up-and-coming startups that are led by Women, Migrant and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander from any industries. Key criteria: - Your startup has a focus on innovative product, service, business model or delivery model - Your startup has to be founded by Women, Migrant or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander - Your startup is technology enabled, or structured for scale

The Pitch Night:

Startup Victoria are proud to partner with LaunchVic to showcase 4 diverse startups, as they pitch to a panel of hand-picked, expert judges as well as our usual community of founders, startups, investors and more. They will also be pitching to win the Startup Victoria Prize Package below.

Timeline:

• 18 April - Applications open
• 15 May - Applications close
• 16 May - Shortlisted applicants announced
• 21 May - Pitch Training & Selection Session (for shortlisted applicants)
• 23 May - Top 4 Finalists announced
• 28 May - Pitch Night

To apply:

• Please fill out this form by Wednesday 15 May.

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Prize Package:

• Austrade: Participation in the Landing Pads program at a location of your choice (Singapore, Berlin, Tel Aviv, San Francisco, Shanghai)
• AWS: $5,000 AWS Credit to the winner and $1,000 AWS Credit to finalists
• Crazy Domains: 1 x hour consultation with a web expert and free comprehensive website health check, valued at $279
• Coglan Duffy & Co: 1 x hour of free legal advice
• Connect Labs: $4000 worth sales and marketing technology audit for your startup to get found, get leads and get customers
• General Assembly: $1000 credit for classes & workshops, valid for 1 year.
• Law Squared: $2500 credit to use the Cubed by Law Squared platform.
• Northraine: 10 hours x machine learning training and consultation
• One Roof: 1 month flexi membership worth $370
• Prime Financial: 4hours x consultation for winner and 2hours x consultation for finalists
• SendGrid: $5,000 credit to winner and $3,000 credit to finalists
• Stripe: $50,000 of volume waived of Stripe fees
• SquarePeg Capital: 30mins x consultation with the team

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Major Partners:

LaunchVic is leading the development of a globally-connected startup ecosystem. With the help of startup founders, entrepreneurs and investors, corporates and universities, we aim to build a startup ecosystem that can strengthen the economy, encourage more people to work with and for startups, and represent all Victorians. Our focus lies in the areas of funding, community building and global recognition for the Victorian startup ecosystem. One Roof is a B Corp certified Melbourne based co-working hub that exists to provide everything women-led businesses and startups need to succeed under one roof. Recently voted top 5 female centric co-working spaces in the world, One Roof is home to 85+ businesses and hosts on average 4 events every week. It is a stylish, bright and creative space adorned with hanging planters, murals of women's faces and colourful modernist furniture. By establishing co-working hubs, forging a supportive community and offering business support One Roof is on a mission to be the driving force that puts Australia on the map as the number one destination in the world to be a female entrepreneur. When you become a member of One Roof you join an entire community and thefriendly staff take time to know you and your business needs and ensure you have everything you need to thrive under one roof.

Official Event Staffing Provider:

Weploy is creating an empowered and fearless workforce and building the world's best community of on-demand short-term office support staff.

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Photos and video may be taken at the event and may be used for promotional purposes. Your attendance at this event is considered as implied consent for the use of these photographs for these purposes.

All attendees to Startup Victoria's event must comply to our Startup Victoria Events Code of Conduct.

Across the world, educational institutions are under pressure to keep classrooms up to date with technology and keep curriculums relevant to the demands of today's jobs. Fortunately, Victorian startups are in a prime place to develop technologies to transform how people learn, especially considering the number of renowned schools and universities located right here in Victoria's capital. Our focus on EdTech in April will profile and showcase both leaders and up-and-coming startups that are revolutionising and empowering the EdTech industry. What is EdTech? Education technology is a wide field. Education technology focuses on study and ethical practices; it improves education in a systematic way. Education technology sometimes known as instructional technology or learning technology. The Pitch Night: Startup Victoria are proud to partner with LaunchVic to showcase 4 startups working within the EdTech sector, as they pitch to a panel of hand-picked, expert judges as well as our usual community of founders, startups, investors and more. They will also be pitching to win the Startup Victoria Prize Package below. Timeline: 28 March - Applications open 16 April - Applications close 17 April - Shortlisted applicants announced 18 April - Pitch Training & Selection Session (for shortlisted applicants) 23 April - Top 4 Finalists announced 30 April - Pitch Night To apply: Please fill out this form by Wednesday 16 April.

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Judges

Maddie Scott-Jones, Education Changemakers

Maddie is the Director of Programs at Education Changemakers and brings an exemplary teaching career to her work with the global EC tribe. An alumna of the Changemaker Program, her change initiatives focused on helping children to embrace failure and increasing entrepreneurial resilience. Drawing on experience as a STEM teacher and school leader in Catholic Secondary Schools, she has a particular focus on gifted and talented students, as well as student leadership and entrepreneurship programs. Maddie holds three Masters degrees with distinction in education from the University of Melbourne and Australian Catholic University and sits on a number of education boards, including Casurina Street Primary School's board in Katherine, NT. Maddie is a lead facilitator at Education Changemakers and in her role as Director of Programs leads our work with school leaders in the Northern Territory and Romania, with entrepreneurial teachers in New Zealand and with teams of teachers across Australia who are designing future focused learning experiences for their students.

Amanda Miller, Impact Generation Partners

Amanda is a co-founder of Impact Generation Partners, which advises and invests in enterprises that deliver financial as well as social and/or environmental returns. Amanda is passionate about and committed to building the impact investing ecosystem alongside the philanthropic sector in Australia.

Amanda holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Law (Honours) from Monash University and started her career practicing corporate law at Allens. She then moved into the philanthropic sector working with not-for-profit organisations and in philanthropic services, with intergenerational family foundations.

Amanda is Board member of Philanthropy Australia, the peak membership body for philanthropic foundations, individuals and not for profits in Australia. She Chairs Kids in Philanthropy, a not for profit that engages children and their families in hands-on volunteering opportunities. Amanda is a committee member of the Impact Investment Forum, an initiative of the Responsible Investment Association of Australasia (RIAA).

Amanda strongly believes in the power of supporting and investing in women and girls. Amanda is proud to have advised and invested in a number of for purpose businesses founded or co-founded by women. Amanda loves supporting entrepreneurs and is proud to be a mentor in the Startmate tech accelerator program.

Mark Woodland, Xplor

Mark Woodland joined his mother in her new childcare business after he left the army in 2010, devising an idea for an app-based sign-in for children enrolled at childcare centres. He developed Woodland Education’s three childcare centres to a $22 million business servicing 850 families. In January 2016, he sold Woodland Education to focus on Xplor. Xplor is one of the first apps to integrate iBeacon technology, which allows parents to automatically sign their children in and out of a childcare centre through bluetooth-enabled smart phones. Xplor is also the only end-to-end management system in the education space. The business services around 200,000 users in the childcare sector and has recently been implemented in some of Australia’s top private schools as part of a beta programme. Xplor has 300 schools waiting to use their software.

Laxmi Pun, Melbourne Accelerator Program

Laxmi is the Accelerator Manager at the Melbourne Accelerator Program and works closely with our startup, mentor and investor communities to drive startup success. Laxmi is also passionate about empowering diverse communities through entrepreneurship. Her career spans from being a founder, program designer, and investment consultant through her roles at Startupbootcamp, The Talent Institute Australia, and Villgro India

Prize Package:

• Austrade: Participation in the Landing Pads program at a location of your choice (Singapore, Berlin, Tel Aviv, San Francisco, Shanghai)
• AWS: $5,000 AWS Credit to the winner and $1,000 AWS Credit to finalists
• Crazy Domains: 1 x hour consultation with a web expert and free comprehensive website health check, valued at $279
• Coglan Duffy & Co: 1 x hour of free legal advice
• Connect Labs: $4000 worth sales and marketing technology audit for your startup to get found, get leads and get customers
• General Assembly: $1000 credit for classes & workshops, valid for 1 year.
• Law Squared: $2500 credit to use the Cubed by Law Squared platform
• Northraine: 10 hours x machine learning training and consultation
• Prime Financial: 4hours x consultation for winner and 2hours x consultation for finalists
• SendGrid: $5,000 credit to winner and $3,000 credit to finalists
• Stripe: $50,000 of volume waived of Stripe fees
• SquarePeg Capital: 30mins x consultation with the team

Major Partners:

LaunchVic is leading the development of a globally-connected startup ecosystem. With the help of startup founders, entrepreneurs and investors, corporates and universities, we aim to build a startup ecosystem that can strengthen the economy, encourage more people to work with and for startups, and represent all Victorians. Our focus lies in the areas of funding, community building and global recognition for the Victorian startup ecosystem.

Official Event Staffing Provider:

Weploy is creating an empowered and fearless workforce and building the world's best community of on-demand short-term office support staff.

Photos and video may be taken at the event and may be used for promotional purposes. Your attendance at this event is considered as implied consent for the use of these photographs for these purposes.

All attendees to Startup Victoria's event must comply to our Startup Victoria Events Code of Conduct.

Join us for an evening of espresso martinis and thoughtful dialogue around the social impact space. Panel topic: Ethical Fashion: Do people really care? Vollie and Pro Bono Australia introduce "Espresso Martinis + Impact" 🍸 A new event series that brings together Melbourne's two favourite things...Espresso Martinis and that burning desire to make the world a better place. Our first event kicks off at the iconic One Roof Women and the topic will be "Ethical Fashion: Do we really care?" We have an incredible panel lined-up for this event featuring leaders from the ethical fashion space and sustainability leaders of house-hold clothing brands. 🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸 6.00pm - 6.30pm Drinks + appetisers 6.30pm - 8.00pm Panel discussion 8.00pm - 9.00pm Networking 🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸 Tickets are $35 each, which include an espresso martini on arrival, drinks and appetisers throughout the night. PANEL LINEUP: Moderator: Melanie Yap, Director Social Impact at Ellis Jones Melanie Yap leads Ellis Jones’ social impact work. She has worked with businesses such as Marks and Spencer, Opal Aged Care and Virgin Media to codesign and implement shared value strategies, engaging both employees and supply chains globally. Her work with Marks and Spencer led to the development of a new factory-centred approach to worker training, that has now been adopted in UK, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, East Africa and China. Panel: Panelist 1: Nick Savaidis, Founder and Director at Etiko Fair Trade (https://etiko.com.au/) Nick Savaidis is the founder of Etiko Pty Ltd, the company behind not one but two fair trade brands ....Etiko Fair Trade and Jinta Sport. Through these two brands his company pioneered the idea of ethically produced, eco friendly clothing, footwear and sports gear in Australia. In the latest Australian Ethical Fashion Report, which looks at supply chains of 400+ fashion brands sold in Australia Etiko scored the highest ranking, an A+, …for the 6TH time in a row, the only fashion brand to ever do so. Panelist 2: Jordan Deichen, Premium Lead at Glam Corner (https://www.glamcorner.com.au/) Jordan is the Premium Lead at GlamCorner guiding the development and merchandising of GC's unlimited year round wardrobe offering. GC Premium is a rental based clothing subscription that supports Circular Fashion by reducing the environmental impact of unused clothing and over production in the fashion industry. Jordan comes from a Fashion Tech and Merchandising background starting her career at Stitch Fix, an online personal styling company in San Francisco, CA. Jordan is passionate about innovating change in the fashion industry to help people express their style and find what they love without sacrificing their values. Panelist 3: Nick Pearce, Co-Founder & CEO HoMie (https://homie.com.au/) Nick is the Co-Founder of HoMie, a clothing brand which provides brand new clothing, training and job opportunities to people experiencing homelessness Panelist 4: A representative from Stop The Traffik (http://stopthetraffik.com.au/) Headshot and Bio to follow ...more great speakers to be announced this week (w/c 15th April 2019)

Most startups are lead by tenacious, ambitious, and unstoppable entrepreneurs. But founding a startup takes a lot of work, time, and energy. New challenges can pop up at any time and often frequently. What happens when things go wrong? How do you deal with it? News and social media often show the glory of entrepreneurship or the occasional tragic next level “failures” but what about the little failures in between? The ones that no one talks about. Join us for three stories of failure from three Melbourne entrepreneurs. In an authentic panel discussion, we’re going to uncover: What does failure even mean? When do you decide to stop trying? Specific strategies to deal with failure on a personal level, because it takes a toll. Hear about founders high-highs but importantly, the real story about their lowest lows... Understand what they did to look after themselves and pick themselves up again after the stumble… and what they’re doing now! Our Speakers: Dave Chung, CEO and Co-Founder of Limbr Jodie Imam, General Manager of SBE Australia Tanya Dontas, Co-Founder of Vollie

Our first film night, and belated inaugural opening of StumpJump! StumpJump Co-Lab provides a comfortable coworking space for creatives, innovators and entrepreneurs in which they can work, create, and thrive. Our other major focus is on disrupting existing or older industries, dinosaurs as we call them – through aiding our members in the development of their promising technologies, ideas and businesses. We’ve got a star-studded lineup of short films, videos and trailers - all about adventure, sport, culture & travel! They'll be playing throughout the night to keep you entertained, along with music, great company (mediatech people, fintech, a whole range of other industries & backgrounds), finger food and drinks. Jump in.

The Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference is a can’t miss opportunity to get amped about your career and meet the community of people who can help get you where you want to go. No matter who you are. Featuring high-energy keynotes, inclusive panel discussions, and breakout sessions led by leaders at the forefront of the technology and business sectors, attendees will walk away with tactical skills, the know-how to navigate the twists and turns of their careers, and a genuine community full of role models, mentors, and new friends. It all happens in Melbourne, Australia, on May 15-16. Catalyst welcomes everyone - from software engineers, product marketers, human resources pros, investors, college students, data scientists, digital marketers, startup founders, and more. Studies show two of the biggest reasons people drop out of tech careers are the lack of role models and mentors. At Catalyst, we offer both, and then some. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to change careers, Catalyst is for people ready to take the next step in their personal and professional lives.