July saw the 3rd South Australian Entrepreneurs Week take place, launched on the 3rd July, 2017. But it didn’t stop there and events were taking place before and after the week that just shows how much can be fit into seven days.
The ECIC held two events as part of Entrepreneurs Week with Accelerating Entrepreneurship Adelaide being part of the opening celebrations on the 3rd July, 2017. The launch of Entrepreneurs Week in the morning was run by Brand South Australia who coordinate the annual activities while the ECIC ran an extension program, sponsored by the Department of State Development, at Adelaide’s Convention Centre from 1pm to 5:00pm. The event was free to attend and attracted over 200 participants. The second event of the week was the formal launch of the ThincLab and more on that can be found here.
Accelerating Entrepreneurship Adelaide showcased two streams of research and teaching activity by the ECIC that jointly serve to fuel development of entrepreneurial activities in South Australia. The first stream Strategic Innovation of Place: Building Entrepreneurial Ecosystems dealt with issues associated with building and maintaining the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the second stream South Australia’s Energy Future: Can Entrepreneurs lead the way? worked through how entrepreneurship is responding to South Australia’s energy challenge.
The Strategic Innovation of Place stream hosted presentations by Allan O’Connor and Paul Steffens, both from the ECIC, along with Kirk Drage from LeapSheep and Stephen Yarwood of City 2050. The presentations provided a framework for a workshop session led by Sarah Agboola of the G20 Youth Entrepreneurship Alliance that explored the opportunities the National Youth Entrepreneurship Roundtable Policy Recommendations presented for South Australia. The afternoon ended with an intense panel discussion driven by audience questions directed to the presenters who were joined by the Commercialisation & Entrepreneurship Manager from the Department of State Development, Ben Samy. An overwhelming theme of the afternoon could be summed up in ten two letter words: ‘if it is to be it is up to me’. Entrepreneurs make things happen and each and everyone of us has the capacity to make a difference through our choices of mind and deed.
The Energy Future stream included the guest speaker Jenny Paradiso of Suntrix who was later joined by Garth Heron for a panel discussion moderated by Charlie Hargroves of the ECIC. Charlie then teamed up with Daniel Conley, a PhD candidate in sustainability, to run workshop activities that focused on new and innovative approaches that could be applied in SA. In the second half of the workshop they led participants to identify specific opportunities for entrepreneurship to unlock additional benefits and deliver even greater value and jobs creation leveraging the ‘City of Adelaide Carbon Neutral Adelaide Action Plan’. Participants left with new insights and ideas for building SA’s vital energy future.
Information from the sessions can be found on the Australian Cluster Observatory Website by accessing the Library tab from the hotlinks below.
Power points from the Strategic Innovation of Place session used by each of the speakers can be accessed by searching for the author names in the library here: Allan O’Connor; Paul Steffens; Kirk Drage.
Information is available through the relevant hotlinks on the G20 Youth Entrepreneurship Alliance Workshop and the National Youth Entrepreneurship Roundtable Policy Recommendations.
Case Studies drawn from research on Adelaide’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem can also be accessed via the library here searching for Allan O’Connor and Gerard Reed as the authors.