A team of high-powered Queenslanders is working to future-proof a successful entrepreneurship ecosystem for the state and their initiatives will be interrogated by some of the world's best business minds who are in Brisbane this week.
MIT REAP Team Queensland is developing initiatives to nurture and invest in innovation in mining, agribusiness and environment under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (REAP).
Their solutions, which should have broad economic impact at a regional level, will be guided by top professors from MIT’s Sloan School of Management including Dr Phil Budden, Professor Scott Stern, Professor Fiona Murray and Professor Bill Aulet.
MIT REAP Team Queensland members are Damien Walker (Director General, Innovation, Tourism Industry Development and the Commonwealth Games), Wayne Gerard (cofounder and CEO, RedEye), Elaine Stead (Head of Venture Capital, Blue Sky), Alastair Mathias (General Manager - Automation & Technology, Productivity & Technical Support, Rio Tinto), Professor Bronwyn Harch (Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), The University of Queensland), Professor Rowena Barrett (Executive Director, Entrepreneurship, QUT) and team champion, QUT’s Professor Arun Sharma (Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation).
The three-day workshop runs from 29 January to 1 February, 2019 and blends lectures, networking events, team discussions as well as tours of Queensland’s innovation ecosystem, including food technology and robotics at QUT.
Professor Sharma said Queensland was chosen to host the workshop which welcomes international teams including one from the coldest place on Earth, Yukutia in Siberian Russia.
Other teams include Ghana, Saudi Arabia – Wester Region, Quito, Lebanon and Melbourne.
“While each team will be looking to develop initiatives to address their own specific regional economic growth priorities, by developing and sharing our ideas within the highly-intensive MIT environment, our experience will be amplified many times over,” Professor Sharma said.
A CSIRO report[1] released in August last year indicates technology, emerging global markets, demographics, digitisation and cultural change are significantly reshaping the landscape for Queensland businesses, governments and communities.
Professor Sharma said Queensland needed to transition to a digitally-enabled economy and that participation in the MIT REAP program was an indication that government, business, academia and risk-capital investors were working with entrepreneurs to guide this change.
“If we don’t keep pace with change, the report indicates that 868,000 jobs will be at risk by 2038, however, if we embrace and plan for change to help create one million new jobs,” he said.
QUT Vice-Chancellor, Professor Margaret Sheil said she was pleased to see universities increasingly becoming engines of economic growth, and that QUT’s participation in the MIT REAP program was a sign of QUT’s commitment to this.
She said a Food Innovators Festival will be showcased alongside the workshop - at lunchtime on Tuesday 29 January at The Cube, QUT’s Gardens Point campus - to spotlight emerging agri-food ecosystems – including novel innovations and the science behind eating.
Professor Sharma said Queensland must build on technological advances in our key sectors of mining, agribusiness and environment to promote growth.
“We will be highlighting how science can be partnered with technological and business developments to drive innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly in regional Queensland,” Professor Sharma said.
“Our aim is to create a globally leading innovation ecosystem for the sustainable growth of Queensland’s sectoral strengths linked to our natural resources.”
Professor Sharma said teams use existing and original data on innovation and entrepreneurial capacity in their region to underpin actions they plan to stimulate and accelerate innovation-driven entrepreneurship in their region.
Acting Innovation Minister Di Farmer said the workshop would bring some of the best innovators from across the globe to Queensland.
“We’re thrilled MIT REAP Team Queensland will be hosting the upcoming workshop of its Global cohort in Brisbane - the only workshop in the two-year series held outside of Boston, thanks to the Palaszczuk Government,” Ms Farmer said.
“Queensland has a growing international reputation as a hub for technology and innovation. This program gives us a seat at the table with world-leading innovators and entrepreneurs to find new ways to support Queensland’s best and brightest and export our ideas overseas.”
The MIT REAP event will lead into the highly-acclaimed MIT Bootcamp which is being hosted at QUT for a third year in a row, in collaboration with Advance Queensland.
There will be more than 100 participants from over 30 countries involved in the program which runs from February 2-8.
MEDIA CONTACT: media@qut.edu.au or 07 3138 1150.
[1] THE INNOVATION IMPERATIVE August 2018 Risks and opportunities for Queensland over the coming decades of economic and technological transformation
