Industrial Design Capacity Building

Greetings from the Canberra Innovation Network where Ashley Marsh-Croft is running an Industrial Design Capacity Building and PVP Info Session. There is about $100,000 available in vouchers for startups to get help with their prototypes. This is about physical prototypes, not software, or services.

Inserting microphone into soft toy,
Photo by Tom Worthington, CC-BY 2022

The example I chose was a throwable microphone. These are available, but are not cheap and are so heavy I would not want one thrown at me. So I went out and got some stuffed toys with zips in them. Could this be improved on as a product? As an example, how heavy does it need to be to be easily throwable, but not dangerous. Would it be better rugby football shaped, rather the a cube or a ball, as many are? Adults seem to react well to a cartoon face on the microphone, will this help them orientate the unit?

Chat GPT generated image of a
teacher throwing a microphone. 

Copilot generated image of a
teacher throwing a microphone. 

I asked Chat GPT and Microsoft Copilot to "draw a throwable microphone shaped like a football being used in an australian classroom". They produced remarkably similar results, both with a female teacher and three students.  Chat GPT had a microphone end to the football. 

Some questions this brought up were if the microphone could be made of molded foam with no cover. This would be much cheaper, down to the point of being disposable (recyclable?).

Digital Learning For Behavioural Change

I was skeptical, and slightly worried, by the title of Haymarket HQ's talk last Friday: "The Future of Digital Learning to Drive Behavioural Change" by So-Young Kang, Founder of Gnowbe. Haymarket HQ is a start-up center in Sydney's Chinatown, specializing in helping Australian businesses expand into China. But the behavioral change So-Young talked about was not some sort of Orwellian brainwashing, but helping people get ready for new jobs.

So-Young emphasized a mobile first approach to online learning, rather than mobile responsive. The latter is for on-line delivery to desktop computers, but uses features in web technology to ensure the display is adjusted if the student has a mobile device. With real mobile-first, the screen display, the content, and the course, is designed with mobile devices in mind. This requires much smaller units of learning.

With my course design I started with desktop orientation, about ten years ago, and started incorporating more mobile features using responsive design over the last five years. I now assume the student will study the material on a mobile device, do the quizzes and forum interaction, but still use a desktop computer for the major written assignments.

So-Young talked of both businesses and universities using Gnowbe products for staff and students. What was most interesting was using this for people skills. Academics and teachers could look at some of these techniques. What is yet to be explored in detail is how this will fit with conventional post-secondary learning. Are VET and university qualifications to be replaced by micro-learning? I suspect not, but it may be supplemented, or supported by this.

Square One Coworking Space at ANU

The Australian National University has announced "ANU Square One",  a coworking space for "student entrepreneurs working on projects, startups or freelancing". There will be a launch at 5pm, 21 August 2019. Students can apply now to be "onsite" members. As an ANU alumnus, I have applied to be an "off-site" member, to work on the "Async-Sync Learning System".

Australian Tech Entrepreneurs Needed for Reality TV Show

The Australian Computer Society (ACS) is supporting a new reality TV show "Game Changers". 24 contestants are required for 10 weekly elimination rounds. Applications close on November 23. The winner will receive support for their start-up.

ps: Those who have participated in Innovation ACT, ANU TechLauncher, and similar programs, will have a head-start.

Innovation ACT

InnovationACT is a ten week startup program and completion for Canberra's university students (with a $50,000 seed pool). IACT starts 14th August. I am one of the mentors (my team last year was OK RDY).

China’s Education Boom: A Golden Opportunity?

Greetings from Haymarket HQ in Sydney's Chinatown. This is a start-up center for entrepreneurs looking at the Asian market. This evening has a presentation on "Eureka! The golden opportunity of China’s Education Boom" with Maria Spies and Patrick Brothers from HolonIQ.

Patrick commented that currently there is a heavy weighting of postgraduate students attending Australia's Group of Eight universities. To keep this in perspective he commented that China is out investing the USA in education three to one and noted that international investors are underrepresented compared to other industries.  Patrick noted that the Chinese government recently shut down two hundred international educational partnerships, however he did not explain why.

Maria commented that the issues in Chinese education are much the same as in Australia: including new flexible classrooms, STEM and STEAM curriculum, and edtech. One difference she noted was an openness to technology by parents and teachers. Much of the investment is in private after-school tuition.

Keeping in mind my proposal for Australian to provide blended learning online, I asked if Australian institutions could sell into China. Maria answered that inflows of students into China are increasing and there are likely to be increasing regional flows. She suggested that Australian universities should not assume the current model of Chinese students coming to Australia will continue. Students are willing to use online learning from quality institutions, along with local partnership campuses.where facial expression recognition was used to 

Sydney Startup Hub: Model for the University of the Future?

On Friday I attended the last Friday Night Pitches at the Fishburners co-working space in Ulitmo in Sydney, before they move to a new location in the Sydney CBD. Fishburners is currently located in an old warehouse with timer beams on the ceiling in the Industrial/New York loft style adopted by start-ups around the world. Fishburners is moving to the NSW Government sponsored "Sydney Startup Hub" along with the Stone & Chalk Fintech Hub and other incubators and accelerators. They are offering free trials and discounts on the new location. It will be interesting to see how the new, more corporate atmosphere effect
s the start-ups.

The new fit-out is by interior architects TomMarkHenry and from the artist's renderings looks open and comfortable. This is a more modern building, but not new (which is a good thing). It appears to be "Transport House" built in the Art Deco style in the 1930s:

"Transport House is one of the most intact Art Deco buildings in Sydney, and one of the earliest fully resolved Art Deco expressions in CBD (along with ACA at King and York Streets). It is an important building by prominent firm of H. E. Budden and Mackay, and was awarded a Sulman Medal in 1935 and Royal Institute of British Architects Medal in 1939. Substantial important intact office interiors survive. The building is rare for its scale and extensive use of green terracotta facing, considered the most impressive in Sydney. It is a major element in the townscape of Wynyard Square precinct."

From Former Railway House (Part of Transport House), NSW Office of Environment and Heritage.

The new interior design is by the same architects of the WeWork co-working space at Pyrmont in Sydney. From a brief visit, this I thought was a little cluttered with too much industrial ornamentation, but still usable. It is a shame perhaps, the designers did not go for some 30s details with the Sydney Startup Hub: perhaps a comic book transport motif?

The design of such start-up hubs is of interest for more than budding entrepreneurs,  as the same design is now being used for universities and businesses. With this approach there are a few dedicated offices and some meeting rooms. Most of the space is given over to open plan shared working areas with offices, with movable furniture and combined recreation presentation rooms with kitchens. Some may lament the loss of individual offices and dedicated presentation rooms, but few would be willing to pay the cost of these, either in terms of dollars per square metre, or loss of flexibility.

Bree Trevena from University of Melbourne wrote recently about Australian universities becoming more integrated with the community by locating facilities in the city and providing services on campus for the community. One driver for this Trevena did not mention was review. Start-up co-working spaces charge for desk-space by the day, week, month or year. It will be interesting to see if universities adopt the same approach. Companies are reducing the allocation of permanent offices and desks for staff, preferring staff to be out on site with customers. The same could be applied to students, who should not be sitting around at the university, but out in the community, in the field, or at work, learning. This would be particularly applicable for graduate students, where Australia needs to produce more Masters and Doctoral students with practical professional skills for industry and fewer research academics.

Friday Night Startup Pitches in Sydney

Last night I attended the weekly "Fishburners Friday Night Pitches". These are held in the basement of an old warehouse, filled with budding entrepreneurs. There were free drinks and much discussion. Then three pitches, and responses by three judges on a couch.

Fishburners is much the same as any co-working/startup center I have been to around the world (silly name, in an old building). However, two of the pitches were exceptional:

• Omri Wislizki, Manager of the Australian Landing Pad Tel Aviv. Okay, this was not really a pitch of a startup: he was encouraging start-ups to come to Israel. Nevertheless, it was a very funny pitch for a very difficult to sell product: why set-up in Israel?
• The last pitch was Brian Lim, Co Founder of HyperCubes, who are planning to launch micro-satellites for earth observation.

ps: Fishburners is moving to the Sydney CBD. It will be interesting to see if the start-up atmosphere can be re-created in a bland office building.

Chinese Venture Capital for Australian Startups

Professor XU Hongbo of South China University of Technology and Innohub.io, will speak on Investment by Chinese VCs in Australian startups at Haymarket HQ in Sydney, 6pm 3 February 2017.

"Angel investing & venture capital in China; the development of the Wechat ecosystem; the current startup boom in the Middle Kingdom; and investment by Chinese VCs in Australian startups.

Professor XU Hongbo is an active angel investor; founder of the Shenzen venture firm Innohub.io; which is the general partner of the Wechat Growth Fund, which is backed by, among others, Tencent. He is also a professor of computer science, specialising in artificial intelligence, at the South China University of Technology, a Top 25 university. ..."

Chinese Start-ups in Sydney

Nick Jenkins, Co-founder and CEO of Language Confidence will be giving a free talk on "Lessons learned starting up in China" at Haymarket HQ, in Sydney's Chinatown,  6PM, 10 January 2017. "Nick will be talking about raising money in Singapore, creating a global team ... and working with Chinese corporates.".

EdTech Takes Off in an Old Sydney Woolstore

The EduGrowt­h Christmas Party was held Thursday, December 15, in Sydney. EduGrowth is an accelerator network for the education sector. The event was held at the recently opened WeWork Pyrmont co-working space. The keynote speaker was

Adam Brimo,Founder and CEO of OpenLearning. EdTech Takes Off in an Old Sydney Wool-store

 

EduGrowth is new peak body for the EdTech sector: that is start-up companies selling mostly on-line services and products for education.

 

WeWork provide co-working office space around the world (mostly the USA), with two locations in Sydney. The new location in Pyrmont is in an old wool store which has been renovated in the classic start-up style, with old wooden beams and ceilings retrained, plus retro style steel fittings. There is an extensive bar provided and some interesting touches, such as "telephone boxes" for making private calls and cafe booths for intimate meetings.

OpenLearning provide an on-line learning system using what they call "social media workflow". The company came to prominence when they arranged with the Malaysian government to provide the platform for Malaysian university on-line courses (with 59 courses so far). 

 

OpenLearning also have a "Pay for Certification" offering with Hunter TAFE. The idea seems to be you do the courses on-line for free and then pay to receive the formal certification. This is not as radical as it sounds, as the VET sector has previously provided Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). I obtained a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment through Canberra Institute of Technology, with 80% through RPL and the rest some on-line learning and assessment. The OpenLearning/Hunter Cert IV T&A is more than twice the cost I paid for CIT certification.

Plan for Australian Tech Startups

StartupAUS have released a 182 page "Crossroads 2016 Report: An action plan to develop a vibrant tech startup ecosystem in Australia" (Colin Kinner, November 2016).

The action plan has six themes, with corresponding recommendations:

1. "Startup ecosystems need to be geographically concentrated:
   • Recommendation 1: Support the establishment of innovation districts in major cities
2. Australia needs a coordinated innovation and entrepreneurship plan:
   • Recommendation 2: Create a national innovation agency
3. Startups need capital to grow:
   • Recommendation 3: Improve the R&D Tax Incentive by making it more favourable to startups
4. Startups need access to world-class expertise:
   • Recommendation 4: Implement a national Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program
   • Recommendation 5: Implement and improve the Entrepreneur Visa
   • Recommendation 6: Make targeted improvements to Employee Share Schemes legislation
   • Recommendation 7: Establish a program to attract promising international startups to Australia
5. Tech startups need tech skills:
   • Recommendation 8: Extend the Digital Technologies Curriculum
   • Recommendation 9: Relax restrictions on 457 visas for startups
   • Recommendation 10: Implement measures to counteract high cost of living for foreign skilled workers
6. Australia needs to produce more entrepreneurs of its own:
   • Recommendation 11: Implement entrepreneurship programs in all Australian primary and secondary schools
   • Recommendation 12: Implement entrepreneurship programs in all Australian universities 
   • Recommendation 13: Introduce a Startup Scholarship for STEM graduates
   • Recommendation 14: Immerse Australian university students in Silicon Valley and other startup hubs

Education Related Recommendations

Five of the recommendations relate to education. Curiously, the first of these, "Extend the Digital Technologies Curriculum", is listed under theme 5, whereas the others are under theme 6.

The recommendation to extend the Digital Technologies Curriculum to be an elective in years 11 and 12, is reasonable. But making it mandatory for years 9 and 10, might be difficult to implement and counterproductive.

Implement entrepreneurship programs in all Australian primary and secondary schools is, I suggest, unrealistic. However, entrepreneurship programs in all Australian universities is feasible. However, this might be better implemented at a regional level, and also should be extended to the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector, not just universities. Canberra does this well, with local government and higher education institutions jointly running the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN), located in the center of the city's innovation district.

It is not clear why Startup Scholarships should be limited just to STEM graduates, or that "immersing" students in the startup hubs of other countries would be cost effective. Students from the creative industries should also be included and the on-line option should be explored. Students can learn to work together on-line, and this learning can be cost-effective, using peer-assessment and e-portfolios.

What is missing from the report is the use of on-line technology to provide the educational initiatives. There appears to be a contradiction inherent in the report and in start-up mythology, that "disruptive" on-line products can only be produced by people in close physical proximity talking face-to-face and using bits of paper. Perhaps it is time that the start-up industry was itself "disrupted".

ps: Unfortunately, at 42 Mbytes, this took a long time to download with my wireless modem. StartupAUS  might like to use responsive web design, rather than last-millennium PDF.

Canberra Renewables is the University of the Future

This week I attended the opening of the Less Than Two  Degrees Renewables Innovation Hub in Canberra. This is a new office building professionally fitted out, specifically as an innovation hub. This contrasts with the typical innovation center in a converted warehouse, such as  Fishburners in Sydney. As well as being an excellent design for an innovation center, Renewables Canberra provides a template for the university of the future.

Half the ground floor of Renewables Canberra is open space for events. This area has no permanent furniture: it just is just a large room. The other half of the building has offices and meeting rooms around the periphery, each with a frosted glass inner wall. The interior has rows of desks on wheels, with clip on power boards, connected to cables from the ceiling. There are rows of lockers forming room dividers. There are two kitchens, with some bench seating.

The space allows for individuals or small groups to start at the open plan desks (keeping their belongings in the lockers) and then graduate to an offices, or suite of offices.

The desks are on wheels and and be pushed aside for events, or to make a classroom. I suggest this will be the design of the university campus of the future. The space can be rearranged as required, for individual, small group work or large classes.

One addition I would make to the design is cafe booths on wheels. With this two rows of bench seats (each on wheels) is arranged facing a table between (also on wheels, but remember to lock all the wheels for a semi-permanent arrangement). These units provide high density, semi-private meeting spaces for groups of six, with the fabric of the high backs on the bench seats absorbing sound.

Another addition would be USB power sockets. USB sockets are much smaller and less intrusive than mains sockets.

The Australian National University is having a Union Court Revitalisation Project Update, 7December 2016, 1 pm. This would be a good place to incorporate multi-use spaces similar to Renewables Canberra.

Renewables Innovation Hub Opening in Canberra

The Canberra Renewables Innovation Hub is having a grand opening 4pm 22 November 2016. The official name for the facility is the "<2degrees Renewables Innovation Hub"*, and is dedicated to helping renewable energy and cleantech start-ups. The hub on the northern end of the innovation zone I previously identified between Canberra's CBD and the ANU campus.

ps: * Innovation hubs seem to delight in obscure and hard to pronounce names. This one is a spin-off of "Entry 29".

Speed Dating for Startups

Last night I took part in the "Get a Mentor" part of the Innovation ACT business model competition, held at Canberra Innovation Network's office. The Innovator ACT Mentors, each sat at a table (I am a mentor). Each team of higher education students then had five minutes to tell a mentor about their project. At the end of five minutes the teams moved to another mentor. The mentors noted which teams they wanted to work with and teams which mentors, so they can be matched up. This was an exhausting, but interesting experience, a bit like speed dating (not that I have tried that).

Some questions I kept asking teams were:

1. What is the product or service?
2. Who is the customer?
3. Who is going to pay you?
4. Are there more people on your team?
5. Have you considered looking for a market beyond Canberra's university students?
6. Is this another Mobile Internet App?