- I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet,
and pay my respects to their elders, past and present. Then I'd love to open everybody
to the Canberra Innovation Network. What a great way to start Innovation Month. In
amongst all the practitioners, so you probably don't, some of you haven't been here, you're
not all faces that I recognise. Some have, but you're surrounded by people who are building
businesses right now. We've got about 60 startups in this space here. A co-working space over
there with young and old, mature men and women building businesses. We have an accelerator
program, and right now, they're in their huddle, they're in a Monday morning huddle, which
is how you're feeling great, it's Monday, yes, we're great. They are being, I won't
say beaten and bashed, but they're certainly being given a lot of support and mentoring
and education in a very intense fashion, over a three month period and they're about week
four and still looking fabulous, so things are looking good. We're actually particularly
excited about the accelerator program because we have 80% of our founders are female. So,
four out of the five startups in that space are women and they are really strong, wonderful,
wonderful women. There's also an incubator over here so we've got about six startups
in the incubator program there, at their latter stage, so they've got some of their seed funding,
so they've got about 800,000 of funding to get them going for the next few years. In
this space a few weeks ago we had an indigenous program, so we had a bunch of indigenous business
people in here showing off what they were doing, so reaching out to all parts of the
ecosystem. In fact on Saturday, this room was crowded and really humming with young
people, got a program for young people to help them become entrepreneurs, and it was
absolutely jam-packed. You could hardly move and it was mostly a lot of creative, so a
lot of music and all that sort of stuff going on. It's a very exciting space to work in
and I can't be any more encouraging to you to say get on board and be part of it because
it's a really energising, fabulous space to be. Those of you who don't know us, we're
a company, we're not government, so we're a company invented by guarantee with charity
status and we've been set up to transform the economy here in Canberra. So, we're trying
to build an innovation ecosystem, not a Silicon Valley, not a Cambridge, not a Singapore,
not a Tel Aviv, a Canberra. If you think about the fantastic expertise and knowledge base
we have here, the Australian National University, University of Canberra, University of New South
Wales Canberra, CIT, CSIRO, Data 61, they're all our foundation partners, and they're trying
to grow a real knowledge economy here in Canberra. We also got the schools, so we're encouraging
young kids to be entrepreneurs and to get engaged in STEM. We are having an absolute
hoot. We've been doing this for 18 months, and really kicking some goals. It's been a
fantastic journey for all of us. If you want to engage with us, we have this thing called
First Wednesday Connect. It's the first Wednesday of every month, get in here, this room here,
sometimes we go off site, but it's usually here. We get 200 to 250 people here every
month, across the whole ecosystem, so you'll meet venture capitalists, angel investors,
big companies, small companies, startups, entrprenuers, researchers, service providers,
government, big and small. You'll meet all sorts of interesting people and there'll be
pitches. We only have about half an hour of pitches, but startups get to pitch so it's
gets you really excited about what people are doing in terms of starting up companies.
So, do come along, first Wednesday of every month at 5:00. It's this Wednesday, isn't
it? This Wednesday at 5:00, so be here. In a moment, I'm going to hand it over to David
Hazlehurst, who's going to officially open Innovation Month. I just want to give you
a little bit of encouragement as a practitioner before you get into that. I know the weekend
has left you in a bit of an uncertain time, but I was thinking about it over the weekend,
and from my perspective your customers, your mandate is the same whatever. Your job in
my view is to grow the economy here in Australia to make it a safe and equitable country. You
have an amazing job. You have an amazing mandate, an amazing outcome that you guys need to drive,
irrespective of who is in the political seat. So, whoever it ends up with, with the job
or the gig, you're still going to have to do that and it's challenging times. I'm not
sounding very encouraging yet, am I? It is challenging from an econimic perspective,
with a global economy and everybody having to innovate in their businesses to be competitive,
you've got a big job ahead of you. If you look at how government services are changing
and the restrictions are getting financially, and the bigger agenda that you've got to deliver,
that's a challenge for you and you're only going to be able to do it with innovation.
You look about how the business models and government are changing in the U.K. and America,
and some civil societies are going "sod it, we're just forgetting government, we're going
to get on and do it ourselves". That's something that you're going to have to wrestle with
and the only way you're going to be able to do that is to be innovative. So, the encouragement
is you don't have to do that alone. You're not government on your own. I am making an
offer here in Canberra, throughout the Canberra Innovation Network to be helping you in all
sorts of innovative ways that we can. If you want to collaborate with a range of different
people, we have a collaborative lab and a collaboration program. We can help you with
that. If you want to grow your capability to be lean and nimble, and innovative entrepreneurial,
we have our lean startup workshops that some of you have already been through, and will
go through this month. We have our co-working space, our incubation and acceleration. They're
all programs to help startups. If you've got a startup idea, and dare I say it, you want
to leave government and start something up we can help you. If you want to stay in government
and do it through skunkworks, we can help you. So, don't think that this massive job
that you've got is something that you have to do all on your own. We are open to help
and collaborate with you. As we do with the ACT government which are our firm and strong
supporters. It's great to have Glen here, thanks Glen. They've done a sterling job of
setting us up, and collaborating with us as we go along. So, I encourage you to jump in
and be part of that. Enjoy your learning in Innovation Month, enjoy doing, I'm sure you'll
be doing things in Innovation Month. Come along to First Wednesday Connect, and don't
forget to collaborate with us in any way you can think of. Now it's my great pleasure to
hand over to David who's going to open this month up for you so that you can find out
what is in store for you.