Spot me at the back! Photo Credit: Aryan Rustagi

Judging UQIES Weekend of Startups

September 26, 2023 by Tinni Choudhury in branding

It’s been sometimes since I was back at UQ for any reason. So it was nice to be back this Sunday to be a Judge for the University of Queensland Innovation and Entrepreneurship Society (UQIES) weekend of startup.

This year’s theme was “Future of Work”, and it was interesting to see the mix of startups that were pitched. There were a lot of pitches solving “now” problems like an AI marking startup. However, I think it is obvious to all that assessments need to change drastically going forward since people are already using ChatGPT to cheat.

Unfortunately, a good portion of the solutions were technology being thrown at very human problems that can’t meaningfully be solved with tech. I hate to say this as an engineer, but the simple fact is that no amount of employee retention tech will work if you can’t or are unwilling to fire the nepo-baby toxic manager.

There were also a few startups pitched towards trying to solve the lingering isolation issues from COVID, including two pitched towards getting remote co-workers to socialise more. However, the issue is that the ideas rest on the premise that we want to be friends with our co-workers. Most people don’t, and those who do are unlikely to wait for company-mandated togetherness to socialise. I am not saying remote work isolation isn’t a real issue. It’s not an issue you can solve with minigames during lunch breaks.

Winners: Teach Wise, Photo Credit: Aryan Rustagi

The three winners addressed the theme of the Future of Work well. Two of the winners focused on pitching technologies that automate need-to-be-done but annoying tasks. One proposed a robotic sander for bespoke furniture. I think the startup was called Joynery or something like that, and they were planning to use computer vision and machine learning to allow for the robots to sand non-standard parts. The other, and the winner, Teach Wise, proposed using generative AI to help teachers create lesson plans. Teaching has become more of a transient field, and it is likely to undergo massive changes in the coming years, so anything that can reduce drudgery is a welcomed service.

The third place, Joynery was second, went to Attention Cube (I think that was the name), which attempts to solve the sticky problem of how to focus! It was an issue I tried to tackle with my team during the MIT Bootcamp, and it’s not something that will ever be truly solved because paying attention is hard! Attention Cube is probably not a longterm business, but it’s a great project that can net the founders a fair bit of money. So yes, I hope the students do pursue the venture!

Aryan Rustagi took all the UQIES event day photos.

Finally, I was one of the mentors for the Catalysr accelerator for high-performing migrant and refugee entrepreneurs - aka Migrapreneurs again this year. I could not attend all the sessions, but I hope I added value to the two sessions I did attend. The expression of interest for their 2024 program is open now. So interested migrapreneurs should apply today!

Virtually attending SEWF22 & Mentoring for Catalysr

September 29, 2022 by Tinni Choudhury in business, branding

So the Social Enterprise World Form is taking place here in Brisbane. I would like to say I am attending in person but I opted for a digital pass instead. I would use Kyco as an excuse but let’s face facts here, virtually attending was just me being averse to people!

I did want to join the after-party but the tickets were sold out. That’s what I get for being lax and only deciding last minute to attend somehow!

As I type this, I am listening to the “Doughnut Economics: going beyond GDP” and the timer says the event ends in a couple of hours. so I wanted to share some of my thoughts.

I enjoyed the talks I got to attend live. It was great to hear first nation voices and listen to the struggles of first nation business founders. I appreciated the conversations around funding with one of the comments that struck me is that funding is often allocated based on the funders’ values which may be too narrow.

As someone who has seen the struggle for funding in both startup-land and research-land, I can appreciate struggling to connect and communicate with capital allocators.

I also appreciated the discussions around procurement and how social procurement can become administratively difficult for both the procuring organisation and the vendor organisation. It’s a problem I am aware of but I feel a lot of activists ignore it when trying to push for change. So I appreciate the advice that “You have to provide solutions, not problems” to social enterprise practitioners.

Finally, I am glad that in the doughnut economics session they brought up the fact that environmental concerns are not necessarily always included when people develop solutions or have organisations dedicated to addressing social issues. Of course, it goes the other way too. The plastic straw issue, for example, became a wedge issue between disability advocates and environmentalists because plastic straws aren’t convinience items for some disable people, who also could not use plastic alternatives easily.

I think the environment vs social issue resonated with me the most becaue there was a web 3, ie. cryptocurrency, based social enterprise at the forums. I am not one of to dismiss any technology out of hand but given the worsening climate crisis, we really need to ask the question if we can afford to let blockchain and cryptocurrency enterprises continue to waste resources on a solution that are still largely trying to find a problem to solve.

Overall, I am glad I made the effort to attend the forum. Even if it was virtually. I look forward to staying connected with the social enterprise community going forward.

The other thing I am doing is making myself available as a mentor to this year’s cohort of Catalysr migrant and refugee entrepreneurs. My two activities collided yesterday and not just because I had to duck out of SEWF22 to meet with two startups for office hours. But also because Usman Iftikhar, the founder and CEO of Catalysr, was the host for the “social enterprise response to migration and its impacts”.

It was great to see him up on stage, and made me feel bad for not making the effort to be there in person. Because it would have been nice to meet him in real life!

As for the mentoring, I always feel like an imposter, and I don’t know how much value I provide those to take the time to meet with me. But hopefully, the two startups who requested office hours with me yesterday got some value. Now, time to return to the SEWF22!

Gartner Peer Insights AMA

July 19, 2022 by Tinni Choudhury in branding

I was asked by Gartner Peer Insights to do a non-live “ask me anything” for their site. The questions and answers are out now!

In other news, I need to get back to recording my podcast. I hope to record a few episodes together and schedule them for release once a week starting in August. So watch this space for that!

The Great Australian Rip-off: What we are doing to #StopTheRipOff

March 28, 2022 by Tinni Choudhury in business, branding

I can’t believe that it’s already the end of March! I didn’t even do a New Years post! Have I been that busy? Yes, yes I have!

It’s been incredibly rewarding and challenging working full-time as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Kyco Australia. As much as I would like to say that it’s been smooth sailing with nothing but wins but that has not been the case. We have suffered many setbacks and even forward steps often resulted in us going backwards. That is, however, the reality of startup life with the journey being more of a zigzag then a straight line.

Onwards with new partners and a new plan! On Thursday the 24th of March we launched The Great Australian Rip Off campaign to expose the secret payments and incentives many Australians don’t realise are driving up their cost of living for services including electricity and the internet.

Insurers have admitted secret commissions paid to commercial comparison websites – some as high as 40 to 60 per cent – end up being passed on to most Australians through higher premiums. Our startup was created to address the market inefficiency born from this rip-off. So it makes sense for us to shine a light on the problem. So join us to #StopTheRipOff, your wallet will thank you!

Mentoring UQIES, Weekend of Startups!

October 10, 2021 by Tinni Choudhury in branding

Yesterday, I stopped off at the Advanced Engineering Building to provide what value I could to the teams taking part in the UQIES’s Weekend of Startups!

The schedule was running a bit late but that worked out for me as I got the opportunity to listen to the founder of Cool Beans Underwear, which aims to boost male fertility. I had read that male fertility was dropping and yes, that does mean opportunity for innovation. So it was good to see an Aussie startup working in this space.

I spoke to almost all teams and there were some interesting ideas in the mix. The one that stood out to be me was a team trying to improve substance abuse education through games. I think they had a compelling issue to address and their proposed solution can certainly work.

Another team was tackling sleep issues in university students, this team also featured Felix - whose team PEAM were the winner of the KMW Transform Law challenge. Felix was also one of the UQIES organisers and the one I liaised with around my mentorship. So it was great to get to chat with him a bit more.

The teams should be wrapping up and preparing for final pitches as this blog goes live. Good luck to all the teams and they are all winners for having had a go at entrepreneurship, even if for just a weekend. May the best team win!

Finally, I was thanked for my time with Rum from Milton Distillery, which made me feel like a pirate! Of course, I don’t drink. So it’s going to become Kyco’s office rum next week. I hope the Kyco crew will like it!