Venture Dorm Graduation

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:16): I have a question for the Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation. Can the minister tell the house about the recent Venture Dorm graduation?

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: That's a great question, Tung.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Employment, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (15:16): I thank the honourable member for his question. As others have interjected, it is a great question. The Hon. Tung Ngo often asks great questions. The state government believes very strongly in the transformative potential of innovation and entrepreneurship, as I touched upon in a previous contribution on the Gig City initiative in Adelaide.

We are keen to support local innovators wherever and however we can. That is why I was incredibly excited recently to attend the eNVIes awards. The eNVIes are the New Venture Institute Venture Dorm Graduation Awards ceremony. It was pleasing to see, a couple of weeks ago at these awards, a number of members of this parliament: the member for Newland was there, the member for Mitchell was there, and we had a good chat, and the former member for Chaffey, Karlene Maywald, was also in attendance. The New Venture Institute has attracted more than half a million dollars in investment, created 136 micro-businesses and start-ups, employing more than 50 people.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The honourable minister has the floor and he is trying to answer a question. Minister, proceed.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Thank you, Mr President. Venture Dorm is an important part of what the New Ventures Institute (NVI) at Flinders University does: offering first-class mentorship and assistance for its participants to take an idea to ready for investment stage in less than 12 weeks.

Unfortunately, they did not have a company that was printing new 3D titanium shoulders for me, but the finalists delivered some truly remarkable pictures on the night in relation to products that they had come up with; for example, the SmartBBQ, which allows the user to control the cooking and the done-ness of meat from their iPhone, or the Common Sense Surf Company that has created a shark-repelling surf wax.

I think everybody at the eNVIe awards was particularly impressed with the gold eNVIe winner, Daniel Lauterio's Warm'n'Ready, a portable battery-powered and temperature-controlled thermos designed to keep water warm, at an exact temperature, to mix with baby formula. I know if my kids were just a few years younger, something like that would have been exceptionally handy, and it is certainly something that I am sure many new parents, including those in this chamber, would be very interested in: a thermos that keeps water at about 44 degrees to mix with infant formula.

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: My cows are interested too.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: The Hon. Robert Brokenshire's cows are interested in being kept at a constant temperature, for some reason, I think. There were some great prizes on offer that evening.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: The gold eNVIe winner, Daniel Lauterio, received a $6,500 cash travel scholarship SXSW Accelerator Award, $10,000 in-kind services from News Corp, $8,000 in-kind prototyping services from Flinders NVI innovation centre, a $7,200 Brilliant Brand workshop from Algo Mas, $2,500 crowdfunding and social media services from Joey Crowd, $1,000 PR services from NewsMaker, $1,000 business mentoring services from BDO, $500 for coaching sessions from Andrew Leunig and Associates, and 12 months' free co-working at NVI at Tonsley.

The People's Choice Award that night went to Alex Tolson and Alex Pearce with the SmartBBQ product, where your iPhone controls the temperature and how much your meat is cooked as it is on the barbecue. They received $7,500 in corporate identity design and data visualisation from Komms-Haus, a BDO gift pack and six months' free co-working space at NVI at Tonsley.

I would like to place on record a thanks to all the sponsors who provided support in prizes and all the judges on the night who judged the pitches that people made. These inspiring and promising entrepreneurs are playing a great role in transforming our economy. Each idea that becomes a thriving and successful business initiative will help to create new jobs and continue to build that critical mass of innovation to drive our economy.

Many Venture Dorm graduates are already going on doing exciting things. There is Scanswap, the team that developed sophisticated software to allow radiologists to share films for analysis. Scanswap was able to work with clinicians at Flinders University as they developed their software, getting end users to apply the technology very early on in their journey and tweak it to suit the needs of clinicians. They already had over $100,000 in funding and more than 200 customers during the 12 weeks of the Venture Dorm program.

During the Venture Dorm program, Scanswap was introduced to a prominent radiologist, one of the business mentors in the NVI network, and investment and customers have flowed from that connection. There are businesses like Populize, a unique user rating tool driven by unique algorithms, which allows users to view any experience anywhere, anytime. Populize was developed with the assistance of researchers in mathematics and computer science at Flinders. The Populize team worked with one of the NVI business partners to develop the app and web interfaces at a significantly discounted rate. They already have customers and over $50,000 in revenue, and are currently seeking further investment.

I congratulate Flinders University's New Venture Institute for its Venture Dorm eNVIe awards, and in particular its director, Matt Salier (who is in his spare time a very keen visitor of South Australia's big things tourist attractions), and his team at NVI. I look forward to being able to update the chamber on more successful stories from NVI and Venture Dorm start-ups.