Impact Boom Elevate+ Event at the Brisbane Powerhouse

Brisbane Powerhouse

Elevate+ Social Enterprise Celebration, Networking & Pitch Night took place at the Brisbane Powerhouse last Thursday and I was there to cheer on Chatfor10!

I cannot claim to know much about social enterprises. It's only recently that I learnt of organisations that are for-profit but with a social mandate attached to its activities. I have done a bit of research on the topic since, but Thursday night was an experience you couldn't get just from reading literature. I was surprised at the variety of startups on display.

Roughly, the startups defined their social mandate in four ways, 1) education and empowerment, 2) sustainability: promoting the circular economy concept through their business model, 3) fair trade: where they buy and sell with profit sharing across the supply chain in mind, and finally, 4) "Buy One Give One" concept. That said, on Thursday night there were also two medical startups that didn't fall into any of the above models.

The two projects, My Med Health from UpRize and  Hemia Optics were just out to do some good. I mean, I could add "medical care" to my social mandates list but even on the night, if felt that My Med Health and Hemia Optics was a bit different from the other pitches.

Education & Empowerment

Google Cardboard + Welcome 360

It goes without saying that Chatfor10 falls under the category of education and empowerment. But the one that interested me the most was Welcome 360. I am very interested in harnessing the power of VR and AR for education. Welcome 360 isn't VR as such, but it is VR adjacent, using 360 educational films to welcome new migrants, refugees and asylum seeker. While I was watching the pitch, I couldn't help but think how to enrich the 360 experience. Also, I think there is potential in the "welcome" concept to embed geocached information in the real world that users can access as they interact with their environment.

Urban Bliss

The other social enterprises in this space included Bertonni who sell ceramic wear made by homeless individuals. Enrich'd Creative who train and hire women from a culturally diverse background, including new immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, to host fun events for kids. There was also Urban Bliss who offer "sound off" yoga for school kids. I think itis a good idea and I loved their headphones!

Sustainability

For me, the most exciting sustainability startup on display in the sustainability category was Brisbane Tool Library. Because I am someone with boxes of unused tools and I understand that you buy the hammer but what you need is the hole in the wall. So I think the idea of a having a tool library from where you can borrow tools as you need them is genius. 

The other sustainability social enterprises on display Thursday night were Lana and Five Mile Radius. Lana is a maternity wear company that allows you to rent or purchase fashioned maternity wear that's sustainably produced. While Five Mile Radius is a design studio that builds with building material found in the local environment. I appreciate the motivation behind both. But Lana especially I think is going to face a lot of challenges. People have tried clothes sharing before without much success. However, perhaps, the niche of maternity wear will win the day for them.

Fair Trade

Technically Lana also falls under fair trade. But the main social enterprise I would classify as focusing on fair trade on Thursday was Yaku Latin Goods. Yaku brought chocolates to the event, that is all they needed to do to gain my goodwill! 

"Buy One Give One"

The last three social enterprises presented where what is usually called "buy one give one" type enterprises. First, there was Mammojo who sell activewear for breastfeeding mothers. If you buy one of their "lactivewear", you help them supply special kits to women in places where they are at risk due to the absence of simple items like gloves, gauge and soap.

The Unknown Project

Social Good Outpost offers free or discounted design services to community organisations that cannot otherwise afford the professional designers. Basically, the full priced commercial clients subsidise the discounts or free service offered to the community organisations. It's a good way for all professionals to give back to the community.

Lastly,  there was the Unknown project. They well-donated books wrapped in a brown paper with clues to the book's story written on it. The idea is that you are buying a blind date with a book. The Unknown project donates their proceeds to supply school resources to The Romero Centre. It's certainly a worthy endeavour but it was more akin to a traditional charity than the other startups on display.

So yes, I had a good time on Thursday and got to hear some great pitches. I am looking forward to contacting some of them and tapping them up as potential speakers for Devstart. Let's see how it all goes!

My Hardware Startup Weekend Experience

Last weekend I took part in the Hardware Startup Weekend at the Arc Incubator space. I was there Friday and Sunday. But missed Saturday due to illness. But my group was pretty easy going, and so I wasn't kicked out. Although I wasn't able to contribute to much beyond the slide deck on Sunday. It was an interesting experience, and I was impressed with how the limited space at the Incubator was utilised. But let's start at the beginning.

Compared to my first startup weekend last November at River City Labs and my second startup weekend, the creative tech startup, at QUT Kelvin Grove, the Hardware Startup Weekend attracted a much smaller crowd. But this was a good thing because the Arc incubator isn't as big as River City Labs. Also, while QUT had a lot of space, I can't say the choice of space during that weekend was particularly inspired. But the crowd that did gather was very enthusiastic, and as a result, we had six teams successfully completely journey. There was a seventh team but they stopped on Saturday and an eight-team never fully committed.

Now, I did pitch on Friday night. "Happy Place" concept was that we use an emotion tracking wearable to create a profile of what places make a person happy. This will take into account subtle things we don't think about like lighting, architecture, ambience and background noise etc. Then the companion app will help people find more places that fit the profile of their happy place. The idea got a few votes but not enough interest to form a group around it.

I wasn't expecting the concept to be super popular. It's just a bit too complex with an unclear consumer base to be attractive. What I wanted was some feedback and connections because I am working on a separate project around emotion tracking. I was pointed towards the founder of Body Corporate Wellness and ended-up joining team Gym Lift with him.

Our team was pretty easy going and that was a good thing. Because I couldn't make it on Saturday and Sunday, I could only help a little with the slide deck. The bulk of the prototype development was done by my teammate, Keith Lang who is the founder of Team Purr, who I originally met during the November Startup Weekend. 

The idea behind Gym Lift was to target the underserved free weight market and develop a gadget that let users auto count their reps. It would be a way to reduce their cognitive load. Also, perhaps motivate them through gamification. Furthermore, gyms could use the embedded sensors to track which free weight equipment was in demand. Also, in theory, users could check out equipment in advance and other similar application.

Ultimately, it was a good idea for the weekend but not a product that could get to market. However, the three winners could be viable businesses. The first prize was taken by Water Aware, which is a water sensing device and service for remote properties without good telecommunication coverage. Second prize went to Rider Remote, a companion device for motorbikes that allows safer information ingestion and interaction while riding. Third Prize when to Deep Sleep, a sleep device. I think that Rider Remote is the most viable idea and potential business to come out of the weekend. Deep Sleep is an idea that appeals to everyone, but there is like three dozen sleep devices in the market and all of them are work for some people but not all people. Water Aware's is a good project concept, in that there are farmers who need to monitor water levels in remote tanks. But the big challenge is the communication. If they solve the communication hurdle, their product without being the water sensor but the communication service. However, they didn't solve the communication challenge over the weekend.

Overall, I am glad I attended. I wish I could be of more use to my team. But I wasn't planning on having chest pains early Saturday morning that ruled me out of the day. That said, I don't think I will attend any further Startup Weekend, for the whole weekend anyway, for the rest of the year. I do enjoy pitch night, so I might continue to attend those. But yes, overall, a good time was had by all!

Team Gym Lift

Hardware Startup Weekend Brisbane

I haven't been shy about not enjoying my time at the Creative Startup Weekend in March. So I had no plans to attend any more startup weekend. Maybe attend the pitch night because I love hearing ideas, half-baked and repetitive though a lot of them may be. However, after seeing the Arc Incubator Space, I couldn't pass up the chance to see how the incubator space would be used for a startup weekend. Also, a friend of mine is going to be mentoring. So I decided to take another roll of the dice and see how it goes. Looking forward to joining a group and just having a good time!

Tanda Hackathon 2018

Last Friday I attended the opening night of the Tanda Hackathon 2018 with the theme of employee experience. I did want to take part when I signed up for the event. But, unfortunately, since then I had other commitments come up that meant that I didn't want to devote my entire Saturday to this event. Also, the friend I wanted to do the event with is now busy with an application for the RCL accelerator, that too played a part in deciding not to participate in the full hackathon. So I decided just to go along, listen to the pitches, see what ideas people had for products to improve employee experience and enjoy the evening. I also ended up pitching two ideas because why not!

The ideas on the pitch night were interesting. There were two ideas that caught my attention. 1) an app for tracking and rewarding good behaviour when not at work. I don't think this was going to be practical because of privacy concerns. But when one bad tweet can get you fired, there is merit in considering rewarding employees for being good netizens. Also, there is merit in the idea of rewarding employees for taking care of their body and mind.

2) An offboarding app and process that follows up with employees who were fired. Again, not sure about the practicality of this because I imagine a lot of fired employees would be angry and not keen to hear from the employer. But then again, I think a lot of employees would appreciate the attention. Especially if its meaningful in that the offboarding involves pointing the former employee towards programs and services that could help them land their next job. 

The two ideas I put forward were 1) Core Skills - which was about benchmarking your skills today and tracking how they develop over time. Crucially, the app would also keep track of market trends, giving employees active feedback about how the most valuable product they will ever work on, themselves, is coming along.

My other idea, which I came up with then and there, was 2) Emotion Tracker. The emotion tracker idea came about because at least three of the pitches was about rating other employees, managers etc. Unfortunately, studies show that our current form of active reviews, rating and feedback don't work. But given that emotion tracking wearables are already a thing, why not use them to track how employees feel during a shift. Properly analysed, the trackers could expose bad managers who demoralise employees, or co-workers who sap the energy out of the room. Conversely, it could also help identify good managers and co-workers.

Obviously, since I wasn't planning on sticking around, I didn't try to form a group around my ideas. I probably should have informally polled the audience to see what they thought. But I didn't think of that on the night. So the night ended with pizza and a pleasant walk back to King George Square bus station. Not a bad way to spend a Friday night, I think!

Techstars Startup Weekend Brisbane 2018

This weekend, around the world, TechStars Startup Weekend is back on. This weekend was targeted towards women, although it is not exclusive to women. Men could come along and join if they wanted. I am not taking part, but I did turn up for Friday night initial pitches. I also gave a pitch, but I didn't do any recruiting for canvased for votes obviously. I mostly enjoyed listening to the pitches.

So where the pitches different from the Startup Weekend in November? Not as much as I thought they would be. There were three extremely similar pitches for fashion related startups that centered around customisation and ethical fashion. There were a few start-up ideas around caregiving, including ideas about making elderly parents more comfortable with technology. However, what surprised me were how many startup ideas centred around financial education and financial freedom. There were, however, no obvious winning ideas among the pitches.

What I mean is that during the November Startup Weekend, it was pretty obvious that the Pegasus Equine Management was a slam dunk unless something went wrong. The idea got the most votes, was the biggest team and it was obvious the lady who pitched already knew going in that there was a market for it. Most importantly, she already had the contacts to break into the market if she could just get a product together. The only idea that approached Pegasus, in terms of known gap in the market and industry connection, this time around was "Florist Connect", but it just didn't have the traction among those who were attending.

Anyway, I handed my card to a few people who I thought I could collaborate with in the future but I am not sure if anything will come of it. It probably would have been better if I could stick around and taken part but between travelling for much of January and a recent bout of illness, I didn't feel I would have the energy to contribute effectively. But I have already signed up for the March Startup Weekend, which has a focus on creativity, including IoT. So I think it might be a good venue to pitch some of my wearable ideas.