This event is the Australian-French Entrepreneurship Challenge or 24 hour Chrono and it's the first
time it's been run in Australia as a pilot.
It involved groups of PhD students coming together and working out a suitable start
up business idea.
It creates a pressure environment that's actually a little bit like, you know maybe, the real
world of a start up.
Entrepreneurialism is a real challenging thing to teach.
It's one of these things you do better by probably doing than just learning it.
You need to rethink out of the box and the idea here is to have people capable brainstorming
and thinking out of the box.
You have to be creative, you have to be strong, you have to be able to not sleep.
It's a century of competition, it's a century of innovation, and to succeed we have to strengthen
the relationship between universities and industry.
There will be plenty of caffeine to see you through the night and I was informed that
there might even be yoga.
All the best of the participants I think it will be a life changing experience and I think
we will see them come reborn.
I don't know what's going to be tomorrow.
It is just exciting.
So, if you move around and face that way, we'll have some photographs and then it's
countdown to start.
5
4
3
2
So, it's still very early on, I think we're
only 5 hours into the 24 hour challenge.
Just formulating ideas.
Coming up with something we think might be plausible and so it's very intense so far,
but I think we're a long way ahead of perhaps where the other groups are, but maybe ask
me at 6am.
See how we're going.
What they've done is they've broken into three different teams, each working out the pitch
and then they've got to pitch it to each other half an hour before dinner.
The biggest challenge?
Actually I'm not too worried.
I think that they're on track.
I think it's going to be a slog after dinner between there and midnight, or one, or whatever it is.
So I think it's about 4:15.
It's been a rollercoaster I'd call it.
One hour you have the best idea ever and an hour later it's all floored and it's not going
to work, but it sounds really bad to be changing ideas at 4 o'clock, but yeah...
We've pulled it together and I think the team's working its best right now as it all comes together.
I think it was challenging, definitely, coming up with an idea from scratch, coming to a
consensus as a group, but at least so far it's been a very valuable kind of exercise.
We've got a good idea.
We've developed our business plan, I guess.
We've definitely got a lot, I think.
We've just got to get it together.
Yep.
A lot of people are on a high sometimes when some people are on a low and then it kind
of balances out.
So, we were always kind of having someone who has high energy and kind of driving the group.
Yeah, I think it's working pretty well. Great group of people.
The team did really well with not rolling out as we got our act together.
But interesting questions.
Our idea wasn't any of our first ideas.
It wasn't even any of our third ideas.
It was like a collaborative effort entirely.
And I hope that we can, you know, continue this French-Australian collaboration.
It hasn't sunk in yet, I don't think.
I think the sleep deprived state is adding to the surreal sheen the event has.
Amazing.
Can't emphasise that enough.
I'm very proud of my team and I think this is exactly the reason why I chose to be an
entrepreneur, is to meet this kind of people and I'm very happy that we'll meet again in Paris.
We can finally sleep.