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!

Antonia Saint NY: Destined for Fuck Up Night?

Fuck Up Night is a thing and the next one in Brisbane will be held on the 22nd of May. I hadn't heard of Fuck Up Night before this weekend. But I am happy to know something like this exists. Because if you only hear about the success, not only do you get a skewed view of the world. You also don't get the whole picture. Not to mention miss out on important lessons. Unfortunately, Antonia Saint New York, a product design Kickstarter I backed, might be a startup heading towards a spot future Fuck Up Night.

I wrote about these shoes before, when I measured my foot using their app. I complained at the time that the app was somewhat difficult to use. But I thought they got the sizing about right because my final show size was 8.5. However, now that the shoes have arrived, I can categorically say that they are the worst fitted shoes I have ever worn and I have worn some pretty ill-fitted but pretty shoes!

I have multiple problems with the shoes. The biggest being that it's extremely tight around the toe box. The shoes also don't hug my feet as they should. It's too wide around the middle and thus leaves the gap. There is also a slight issue with the heel area but compared to the toe box, its nothing!

Now here's the problem. I am not the only person who is having huge issues with the fit. Their Kickstarter comment section is full of women complaining about the fit. I don't know if this was an app issue or I simply got shipped the wrong pair. I mean, it's not like my names on the shoes. Whatever it is, I have to return them because my shoes are bad enough that I can't even wear them while just sitting still.

Antonia Saint NY has already had to waive their "return within 30 days" policy and moved the request for return labels from email to a Google Survey. But as a customer, this is all very worrying.

Because while the shoes are expansive, they price isn't all that high when you take into account the fact that these are supposed to be custom made shoes, manufactured in Brooklyn. I.e. the labour costs are likely to be fairly high. So forget long term success, I am not even sure if the company is going to be able to exchange all the ill fitted shoes! It's worrying but that is the risk of Kickstarter. All that said, I am hopeful that I will get a better fitted pair of shoes eventually. Also that the company will go on. Because comfy shoes are important!

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!

Arc Hardware Incubator

This week, I finally got to visit the Arc Hardware Incubator in Fortitude Valley. I first heard about the incubator during the Creative Tech Start-up Weekend as the equipment available at the incubator was offered to teams to develop their prototype. Given how badly the weekend went for me, I didn't get a chance to visit. So it was a nice surprise to be able to see inside while attending the Brisbane IoT Meetup. It's a very nice space.

They have made very clever use of a very narrow building that's also fairly historic. So there was a lot of things they couldn't knock down or take out. But they have still managed to put in an impressive array of equipment, labs and studios. They have,

• Multiple types of 3D Printers
• Desktop Vacuum Forming Facilities
• Desktop Laser Cutting Facilities
• Vinyl Cutting Facilities
• PCB Engraving Facilities
• Soldering Stations
• Post Processing Tools
• Assembly Equipment etc.

They also have a pretty neat event space too. I kind of wish I had hardware start-up ideas so that I would have an excuse to book some time into Arc. But alas, I don't have any hardware ideas that will let me play with the toys in Arc Incubator. What a pity!

My Kickstarter arrived - After four years and eight months

I was late to the Kickstarter party. In fact, I was late to the whole crowdfunding party and did not hear about Kickstarter until 2013. Considering that the site started in 2008, that’s pretty late. I became aware of the site when the claimed video game composer Jeremy Soule decided to crowdfund the first solo project.

I enjoy the work of Jeremy Soule and so in April 2013, I backed his project. On December 23, 2017, I finally received the album I played a small part to kick start. Obviously, this seemed like the perfect time to me to think back on all the projects I backed through Kickstarter!

If you are interested in reading about the lessons I have learnt backing campaigns on Kickstarter, you can read the article on Medium right now!