Welcome to Day One

Today you're going to hear the story of Chantal Abouchar and The Studio. The Studio is a media technology incubator. The Studio is Australia's first media technologies incubator. It's located in the Sydney Startup Hub, and their mission is to help startups be successful. We'll be learning how The Studio came to be, what Chantal went through in order to make it happen and where it's going in the future, but for now, let's go back to day one where this story begins...

Today you're going to hear the story of Yolanda Surjan from RadVet. Dr Yolanda Surjan is a senior lecturer of Radiation Therapy at the University of Newcastle, she has a bachelor degree in Medical Radiation Technology, a graduate certificate in health promotion, a masters in health science education and a PhD. She has worked in Europe and North America and she has a total of 5 teaching awards and was awarded CSIRO's Breakout Female Scientist of 2017 and is the founder of RadVet. RadVet has gone through CSIRO's ON Accelerate program and is helping to treat cancer in animals through Yolanda's research, we will talk about all of that and so much more, but for now, let's go back to day one where this story begins...

Today you're going to hear the story of the Startup Xpress. Here's the itinerary for today's journey. First, as we head off, we'll meet the man whose idea it was to put the key in the ignition of the Startup Xpress. Then we'll meet the organisers who pulled everything together and the organisations who have come along. We'll take a pit stop and meet some of the founders and hear about one of the main objectives and most valuable aspects of the Startup Xpress. Then before we meet the politicians at parliament house we'll talk about the changing Hunter region. Then after parliament house, we'll tour Sydney Startup Hub and talk to the startups again and hear how the Startup Xpress has impacted them. Welcome aboard the Startup Xpress thanks to the Business Centre and Hunter iF. Let's hit the road...

Today you're going to hear the story of Alicia, Daniel and CompEAT Nutrition. The concept of CompEAT first planted itself in Daniel & Alicia's mind in 2016. Since then they've bootstrapped it themselves for quite some time and invested a lot of themselves into bringing this amazing company into existence, they eventually went through the ICON Slingshot program at the Newcastle University's Integrated Innovation Network and all while raising a young family. Daniel & Alicia are trying to fix a real problem and it's a two-sided problem. CompEAT Nutrition are well on their way to solving the problem with their first product to market. 300 active users and they've been very successful in the last 12 months in proving their assumptions around scalability. We'll cover all of that and more, but for now, let's go back to day one where this story begins... https://welcometodayone.com/compeat

Today you're going to hear the story of Christina Gerakiteys. Christina is a mentor. Christina has quite a varied background and has done a lot, and for a long time she struggled with that fact. The fact that she never could just focus on one thing. As the quote by Steve Jobs goes, You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. It has all started to make sense for Christina today, and we will get to today, but for now, let's go back to day one where this story begins...

Today you're going to hear the story of Diffuse Energy and it's founders Joss Kesby, James Bradley and Sam Evans. Diffuse Energy is a company that, right now, is building wind turbines that are twice as efficient as their competitors, but the vision that Joss and his team have for the company is, well, the sky is the limit. We will hear all about that, but for now, let's go back to day one where this story begins...

Today you're going to hear the story of Andrew Mears and SwitchDin. SwitchDin provides software and hardware solutions for managing distributed energy resources. SwitchDin connects with utilities to help them work more efficiently with the grid. We're going to hear all about SwitchDin, where the idea come from, Andrew's backpacking adventures, the pivots that SwitchDin has gone through and so much more, but for now, let's go back to day one where this story begins...

Today you're going to hear the story of Cake Server and Jade Ryan. Jade blew me away. Jade went to university to study structural engineering, became a structural engineer, started and built a side hustle while working full-time, is a mother of two young children and then, while on maternity leave went through the accelerator program ICON offered by Slingshot in partnership with the University of Newcastle and started a company called Cake Server, which you will hear about today. Oh and one more thing, Jade bought her house at 24. By. Her. Self. We'll get deeper into Jade's and Cake Server's story. But for now, let's go back to day one, where this story begins...

Today you're going to hear the story of FEIKE and Daniel Spiteri. FEIKE is a business that helps get you home safely, the business has grown from an idea that Daniel had that he hoped would bring some quality of life for his family, to now a growing team, currently 3 team members, and helping to get over 1000 people home safely every year. Daniel's vision is much larger than this though... We'll learn about that but for now, let's go back to day one, where this story begins...

Today you're going to hear the story of James Rabbitt and Broader Learning. Broader Learning provides STEM based learning programs to multiple schools. This approach allows Broader Learning to provide a higher quality and more cost-effective experience for the students than any one individual school could provide on its own. Broader Learning has grown out of James volunteering at local school's helping with coding and robotics classes to now operating across a total of 5 campuses. The very first class they ran they received over 3 times the student sign up than the school had anticipated... That's very exciting and I'm really interested to see where James and the team can take this company.

Today you're going to hear the story of Heath Raftery from Newie Ventures. Newie Ventures is an engineering agency. They build solutions to their client's problems. Basically, their customers come to them with an idea, and Heath and his team go to work figuring out how to build it. In the last 12 months alone Newie Ventures' client base has tripled and its headcount has more than doubled. But as Heath says although those numbers sound impressive in reality things have moved very carefully and very deliberately. Let's go back to Day One, where this story begins...

Today you're going to hear the story of Justin Hales and Camplify. Camplify is Australia's largest caravan and RV peer to peer sharing community and is expanding internationally. The company has made leaps and bounds since when it started back in 2014. With over 3500 listings on the site, growing at 500% year on year, with annual revenue of 12 million and forecasted of 16-18 million next year serving over 1500 customers per month, Camplify shows no sign of slowing down.

Today you're going to hear the story of Crave and it's founder Jessica Koncz. Jess didn't go to university instead she began to work in cafes and restaurants as soon as she could legally work. Today Jess is the director of a successful social media marketing agency employing 6 full-time team members and has won a pitch competition that will see her with the opportunity to launch her new app, that as of recording has well over 15,000 downloads, into the U.S market backed by a successful American angel investor. We will get to all of that, but for now, let's go back to day one where this story begins...

Today you're going to hear the story of Elite Robotics and it's CEO Sahil. Sahil and his teams are developing robots that have human-like instincts! The Elite Robotics team have won prizes from not one, but two pitching competitions. They've built a successful prototype of their autonomous lawnmower. They've been through the Slingshot Accelerator program ICON, that is partnered with the University of Newcastle and have secured a partnership with a local golf-course to test and refine their groundbreaking creation. Let's go back to Day One, where this story begins...

Today you're going to hear the story of Crave and it's founder Jessica Koncz. Jess didn't go to university. Jessica began to work in cafes and restaurants as soon as she could legally work. Today Jess is the director of a successful social media marketing agency employing 6 full time team members and has won a pitch competition that will see her with the opportunity to launch her new app, that has well over 15,000 downloads in Newcastle alone, into the U.S market backed by a successful American angel investor. We will get to that, but for now, let's go back to day one. Where this story begins....