Wow! It’s already 2025, and I only made two posts in 2024! One of them was the New Year post, which would give the impression that nothing happened in 2024, but in truth, a lot happened in 2024. Mostly not positive.

I would have still posted about the negative things. I am, if nothing else, a natural diary keeper, and I do see this blog more as a record for me to reflect on later down the track. Although being public, it is also here for those who want to know more about what I have been up to and what I am doing. So, let’s reflect on everything that happened in 2024 and what that means for 2025.

For much of 2024, I was quite sick. The underlying cause is Uterine fibroids that manifest in multiple debilitating symptoms, including extreme exhaustion due to anaemia. However, after much trial and error, I was put on Ryeqo, which is an extremely new and expensive medication designed specifically for uterine fibroids. It’s helped me get many of the symptoms addressed. But I was still extremely exhausted all the time.

I also had bouts of unexplained fevers and a whole bunch of other things. So my GP ordered a whole range of tests, echocardiograms, breath tests and a whole bunch of other things. But it all came back normal EXCEPT my glucose. I have diabetes. A diagnosis so anticlimactic after everything that I went through that I am frankly a bit annoyed.

I was never pre-diabetic. I think my anaemia masked the symptoms of diabetes as they are similar. So, I have no idea how long I have had diabetes. But since October, my diabetes has been managed. Unfortunately, Ryeqo increases the chances of blood clots in people with diabetes. However, the tablets have been such a game-changer that I am happy to risk the increased chance of blood clots.

So that was the big thing on a personal front, but since it's health-related, it affected everything, including my work, which did not go well in 2024 because Kyco Australia has been liquidated. I finished up my last duties as the Chief Technology Officer on the 5th of December 2024 when I shut down the last of our IT infrastructure. So that book is closed.

At some point, I will probably write another post reflecting on my time at Kyco. But it got messy and litigious by the time everything was said and done. So, I am unsure how much I could or couldn’t make public. But I will reflect and put something together that will hopefully not get me sued!

With Kyco closed, I am looking for my next adventure. To that end, I decided to do two further short courses with RMIT University to consolidate my project management knowledge. I already talked about doing Project Management for Professionals during the first half of last year. Then, during the second half, I took the digital project management bundle with Digital Delivery with Agile. After that, Agile Project Management.

I am not sure how I got through Digital Delivery with Agile because I was so unwell during it. I thought I could power through Agile Project Management, but I actually had to take a medical deferment. So I literally ended up finishing the Agile Project Management course in December, getting my badge on the 2nd of January this year!

I have previously included the videos I produced for these courses as part of these posts. However, I was so out of it for Digital Delivery with Agile and so stressed to get everything done for Agile Project Management that these were not my best work. Still, the courses did what I wanted. I was able to verify my experience and knowledge. I also learned a few things I hadn’t had to use yet. All in all, I feel like I updated my knowledge base and closed some skill gaps.

Presenting for PontiNet at Catalysr Accelerator Demo Day

So what’s next? Well, even before Kyco was put into liquidation, I started to work with Dr Jonathan Chernilo on Pontinet. Pontinet is a social enterprise that aims to improve access to Specialists in underserved communities.

It’s a cause I am invested in, given I have seen how underserved folks in places like Bangladesh are outside of the capital. But the venture is in very early stages.

That’s why it was a great honour to be included in the 2024 cohort for the Catalysr accelerator for migrants and refugees. I have previously worked with Catalysr as a chapter lead for their pre-accelerator program and as an IT mentor. But this time, I was on the other side as a participant. My co-founder Jonathan had to take the lead in relation to the accelerator program as a lot of it overlapped when I was at my lowest healthwise. But I ended up presenting on my own at Demo Day in Melbourne in December as Jonathan had to be in Europe.

It was a great day, and I am glad I could finish such a challenging year on a somewhat high note as I look forward to the future and what 2025 brings!

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!