Greetings from the "TechLauncher Team Formation Day" at Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN). This is for Australian National University computing students to produce real software, with the option of setting up a company to sell it.
There is a team of five students working on my project "Better Webinar Tool For Teaching". The idea is to combine the features of a Learning Management System (like Moodle), real time Webinar software. Also I gave a talk to high school students about it (they had useful suggestions, including simultaneous language translation and looking at what Khan Academy already offers). One of the Angels (a person who finds start-up businesses) then got the students working on my project to "pitch" it (even though they had only been working on it for 20 minutes).
It was exciting to see the students enthusiastic about working on project, not just because they get credit for their studies (and might make their fortune), but because they wanted to create something of lasting value.
Future researchers, writing the Canberra equivalent to "The Cambridge Phenomenon" may trace a change in Canberra's economy this event. The ANU campus is located next to Canberra's CBD (blandly named "Civic"). The CBRIN office is in the zone next to the campus which was where the legal and insurance offices of the city are, but is becoming a hi-tech startup area. Within a few years this may take over the whole of the CBD, occupying former government offices and becoming Canberra's third most significant industry (after Government and Education).
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