Judging UQIES Weekend of Startups

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!

The Kyco Way Webinar

Yesterday, Trond hosted the first webinar to present the Kyco way to interested people. The webinar had a strong interest, with 159 people signing up. But unfortunately, the turn-up wasn’t as strong.

So it’s unlikely we’ll host another webinar anytime soon. But we did record Trond’s explanation of what Kyco is, and we’ll be sharing that with the public in due course.

I think it’s important to realise that in Start-up land, more things don’t work than do work. The trick is to learn, adapt and move forward. We tried to do a webinar because we had a strong showing when we hosted these information sessions in person. But I think a webinar doesn’t have the same appeal. So no more webinars!

Virtually attending SEWF22 & Mentoring for Catalysr

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!

UQ Innovation Panel: Back by UQIES invite to be a panellist!

I was back in UQ on Wednesday to be one of four panellists for UQIES Innovation panel. It was fun, especially since I got to stir the pot a bit!

Also, I hadn’t met my fellow panellists before, at least so far as I could recall, and so it was always nice to meet new and interesting people. The other panellists were:

1. Pauline Fetaui, the current General Manager of River City Labs

2. Indi Tansey, the chief officer of people, product and planet

3. Amelia St Bake, the Digital Strategist of St Baker Energy Innovation Fund

Below are the questions that were emailed to me before the event. I think we got through most of them with some variations and some additions from the audience. I am sure you can see where they gave me the opportunity to say some very controversial things!

1. Your background and the journey you guys have taken to get to where you are now?

2. What does innovation mean to you and why is it such a critical component of your life?

3. Touching on successful entrepreneurs for a second do you believe there is a pattern of behaviour they all exhibit that makes them successful? And if so, what are they?

4. Is consulting or experiences in other “traditional career paths” a requirement in the start-up world or is that a misconception or does that consulting experience add extra value?

5. What opportunities are available for business students in the fields of start-ups & technology, bearing in mind a lot of us have little to no technical knowledge?

6. All of you have amazing experiences and projects you’ve worked on. Thinking back to one of those many journeys or projects you’ve worked on or built, firstly what was/is it and what’s something you wish you knew at the start?

7. What valuable gem of a resource has helped you in the past and that you’d recommend to students?

A good time was had by me, and hopefully by the audience. I had some great conversations with the students over the cheese platter. I have also seen a few people connect with me on LinkedIn. Finally, having nothing in particular to promote, apart from Kyco and The Great Australian Rip-off, I decided to finally go ahead with that podcast I have been thinking of launching for some time now. Episode 1, out now!

Another day, another rip-off: #StopTheRipOff

The Great Australian Rip-off campaign is in full swing as we at Kyco work to bring more attention to the problem with comparison sites. As if to validate our problem statement, Trivago was fined $44 million for misleading customers coming to their site looking for the best price.

My CEO, Trond Smith, appeared on Sky News to explain how this goes beyond travel. Highlighting that outside of comparison tools from consumer groups who compare the whole market, these websites are largely sales engines that will highlight the more profitable deals for them. Not to mention they aren’t always upfront about who owns them and sometimes they are owned by the people they are promoting.

It’s all very shady and very late-stage capitalism to a certain extent. 30% of people are switching, so the 70% who are not switching are in a way bearing the cost of the switchers. But also, the switchers are paying with their time and effort to keep switching. Wouldn’t it be better if we all just save as a collective?

Kyco is trying to be that collective and I am proud to do what I can to make that happen!