After fantastic growth and improvement in only three years, College’s annual start-up competition, Androvation, promised great things in its fourth iteration. Our young entrepreneurs sought to develop their 3-day Minimum Viable Product (MVP) into a pitch to the judges for $3,000 seed funding.

After an extremely successful 2019 programme, there was plenty to live up to. The programme kicked off on the Friday evening with an exciting look at innovation and entrepreneurship with Dr. Steven Hitchcock, a lecturer at the University of Sydney in the discipline of international business. Dr. Hitchcock began the ideation process by giving an engaging introduction into the ‘Politics of Science and Technology’ and the broader impact that these drivers have in shaping social dynamics. The purpose of the session being to give students insight about some of the problems humanity currently faces, and how to develop unique, original solutions.

The genesis stage kicked off early on Saturday morning, with teams forming and beginning to find their footing as a number of probing ideas and potential projects were entertained. The first guest speaker of the Saturday was Bec Weeks, who called in from Chicago to discuss the development of her company’s new app Pique – which uses behavioural science to improve daily cognitive function and performance – as well as venture capitalism’s influence over the start-up sphere and her company.

This was a useful session as it allowed the students to apply Bec’s story as an example when the second guest speaker – Annabelle Scott from Tempus Partners – delivered an excellent crash course into the investor’s perspective in venture capital relationships, and how students may approach their Sunday evening pitches.

As ideas slowly morphed into existence and brains began to tire, each new insight into the business world reinvigorated the groups to view their business ideas in new ways. The next guest, Sam Clarke (co-founder of extracurricular management system app Clipboard), toured the various groups for more intense individual feedback sessions, whereby students bounced ideas of him and further manifested their ideas into more concrete solutions.

Our final guest Craig Blair – co-founder and managing partner of AirTree Ventures – generously came in for a ‘fireside chat’ in which students were just as interested in learning about his diverse and extensive career path as they were about his insight into the world of venture capitalism and his review of their ideas.

­­­­­­­­­After a long Sunday putting together a presentation deck for their MVP, Androvation culminated in 10-minute pitch presentations to a panel of three judges: Will Cesta, John Sergeant and Jason Weeks.

Tom Woodcock took home the winning prize with his idea Flashmob, which aims to re-shape the flash sales industry by incentivising customers to purchase goods more quickly when a sale goes live. The soundbite Tom used was: “Buy now. Get paid later.” In essence, the quicker someone purchases the product from its initial release, the more likely they are to receive a portion of their money back. For example, customers 1-50 receive 80% of their money back. Customers 51-150 receive 40% of their money back. The premise being that customers who purchase the good after customers 1-150 will help to fund the cash backs to the first customers. The theory is that by increasing sales by just 4%, Flashmob will break even on their discount model for any product sold, and with the added incentive and hype created by Flashmob’s discount opportunity, more than 4% more customers will look to purchase the goods, and quickly.

It was an extremely nuanced pitch, and my few lines do not serve it justice, but it was certainly enough to convince the judges that it was worthy of the winning Androvation pitch for 2020.

Other ideas included:

• “Scrunched” An environmentally-friendly, online receipt platform which serves to both eliminate paper receipts and to act as a database for previous transactions, warranties etc.
• “Blue Guru” A tutoring and exam service for STEM subjects, allowing students to target specific areas of individual syllabus points, and providing greater accessibility for rural students.
• “Doubletake Media” A company aiming to collate news articles designed to give readers snippets of both sides of the argument before allowing them to delve deeper.
• “Agile Queue” A virtual queuing platform.
• “Teammate” An app designed for amateur coaches to help structure their coaching sessions, using drills developed by professionals.
• “Jobsie” A job-seeking service similar to Seek and GradAustralia but focussed more on accessibility to university students, employing skills developed during the intermediary stages of their degrees.

The calibre of the pitches this year reached a new tier. The poise of the presentations, the detail and engagement across all groups were strongly commended by the judges. The event was also an exceptional opportunity to network with alumni and industry professionals with strong business acumen, of which all students utilised. The success of Androvation 2020 is undoubtedly indicative of the potential for growth in all facets of the competition and I have no doubt that whoever takes the reigns next year will take the event to further horizons.

I would like to extend our sincere gratitude to the guest speakers over the course of the weekend; Dr Steven Hitchcock, Bec Weeks, Annabelle Scott, Sam Clarke and Craig Blair, as well as Will Cesta, Jason Weeks and John Sergeant for going above-and-beyond in their sagacious enumeration of the strengths and weaknesses of each pitch in what was a tightly contested competition. We are all truly grateful for your time. I can say with confidence that the mentors added an element of excitement and rigour to the programme, and all the groups strongly benefitted from their expertise.

– Lachlan Martin

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We had the privilege of showcasing our Taylor Scholar projects on Thursday 8 August.

Eleven presentations were executed in the challenging Pecha Kucha format during a sumptuous four course dinner in the Chapel. Attending this event were Charlie Taylor, founder of this scholarship, Principal Wayne Erickson, Vice Principal and Director of College Life Hester Wilson, parents, past Taylor Scholars and some current students who are considering applying to be Taylor Scholars in 2020.

Benjamin Stacy was an exceptionally competent MC who kept the tightly planned evening on schedule with relaxed confidence. The projects were grouped into Leadership projects (Ben Stacy and Kieran Bonin), Community (George Stribling, Tom Hicks and Edwina Hobson), Special Interests (Robbie Hayward, Tom Dowse and Zac Whitehead, and Arjun Prakash who delighted us with his snapshot of questions asked of his STANDROID app), and the final group was Inclusion which included Madeline McCathie, Nicky Craze, Molly Saunders and Rohan Browning.

The Pecha Kucha presentation format requires the presenter to talk to a set of slides; fifteen in this case. The slides are set to run continuously for a pre-determined time (here, five minutes). The Pecha Kucha format requires a lot of preparation and planning. It demands that the presenter talks strictly to the point. Most presenters rose to the challenge and very few slipped behind. Those that did were able to catch up and move on in a very professional way. I was extremely proud of all presenters and I look forward to working with next year’s students.

Dr Diane Spencer-Scarr

Professional Mentoring Project Officer

Pictured: Chair of Council, Charlie Taylor with our 2019 Taylor Scholars

Photographs by Euro Ruangvanish (Fr 2019)

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The second of our four pilot Professional Development events was held on Tuesday the 14^th May 2019. The format of the event was ‘TURBO PANEL’, and the theme was ‘HR Help!’. Our ‘TURBO PANEL’ format allowed small groups of students to chat face-to-face with each of our guests for a longer timeframe than was possible in the previous event. It also reinforced the value that can be obtained by listening as each member of the small group posed their questions.

As with our previous event, both guests and students found the evening stimulating and valuable. Guests were impressed with the quality and forethought of the student questions. Students on the other hand found the information and insights shared by guests to be valuable, and in general they left the event feeling optimistic and enthusiastic about their future prospects.

At this event we decided to open up some places to students from other colleges. The general consensus of these students was that the event was ‘fantastic’ and ‘extremely beneficial’. All students asked to be invited to any future events if possible as ‘they had never attended something like this’.

The underlying objective of this event was to create an environment for the development of natural mentoring dyads. It also expanded on our previous event by introducing the development of ‘soft career skills’. �鶹ԭ�� College was privileged to have the expertise of prominent recruitment specialists who have all offered to participate in future events.

Dr Diane Spencer-Scarr

College Life Professional Mentoring Project Officer

Photo credit: Chester Burns (Fr 2019)

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On Thursday 2^nd May, �鶹ԭ�� College held its first Professional Development Program event. The theme of this event was “What I Learned & What I Do”. This theme is the result of research conducted at the end of 2018, where a focus group revealed a number of issues. Three key issues were that students want:

• face-to-face conversations with individual mentors;
• mentors from diverse industries and sources (not just alumni); and
• mentors who had diverse career paths.

To accommodate these criteria a new event format was developed: “TURBO NETWORKING”.

Guests were met at the main entrance and chaperoned by their assigned student host/hostess to drinks in the Senior Common Room. There, vibrant conversations took place with students acting as perfect hosts, introducing guests to other students and guests. To assist networking, a Professional Development Program booklet was made for guests and students with photos and biographies of all attendees.

Guests were then taken to the Dining Hall for a three course formal dinner and the lively conversation continued. Ian Smith led grace, which was followed by a speech from our Alumni Secretary Francesca Spry (Fr 2017). Francesca welcomed guests and students, and thanked all who assisted in the event. Dr Diane Spencer-Scarr (Professional Development Officer) then briefly provided background to the progression of the Professional Development Program and how its structure has been based on academic research.

After the main course, Benjamin Stacy (Fr 2015, Assistant Researcher within the Professional Development Program) spoke in more detail about the challenges facing the millennial cohort and how our program is addressing these challenges. Benjamin also explained how the “TURBO NETWORKING” aspect of the evening worked. “Our residents will show our guests to the Chapel and each of our professionals will have a designated seat on the outside of the tables,” he explained. “For our guests and students, you will have two and a half minutes to briefly introduce yourselves, and then our guests will be able to provide an insight into how, or if, what you learned at uni supported you in your career path. Students, ask plenty of questions, and try and relate what you’re studying to different professional contexts.”

Benjamin’s concise and professional approach as Master of Ceremonies set the tone. From the first rotation to the last, there were non-stop conversations. By the end of the evening both students and guests were satiated with ideas and information. The evening was a tremendous success and positive feedback has been received from both students and guests. This format will certainly be used again – we will however have longer rotation times to allow for more in-depth conversation.

Dr Diane Spencer-Scarr

Professional Mentoring Project Officer

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After fantastic growth and improvement in just two years, the third iteration of the Androvation programme promised great things: another opportunity for the budding entrepreneurs at �鶹ԭ�� College to create and develop business ideas to solve real world problems.

After an extremely successful 2018 programme, there was plenty to live up to. The programme kicked off on Friday evening with an insightful look at innovation and entrepreneurship with Dr Steven Hitchcock, a lecturer at the University of Sydney in the discipline of International Business. Dr Hitchcock inspired the participants to think about the breadth and depth of ideation and introduced a number of common pitfalls.

The ideation stage kicked off early on Saturday morning, with groups beginning to find their footing; a number of probing ideas and potential projects were entertained. Over the course of the day, we welcomed a number of knowledgeable business professionals to challenge the groups to think outside the box and truly consider: is this idea solving a real problem?

As ideas slowly morphed into existence and brains began to tire, each new insight into the business world reinvigorated the groups to view their business ideas in new ways. I would like to extend, once again, my sincere gratitude to the mentors over the course of the weekend: Steven Hitchcock, Alex Carpenter, Lisa Fedorenko, Sam Clarke, Dean Gingell, Tony Green, and Gerard Hines. This was the largest cohort of mentors we have ever had at an Androvation event, and we are all truly grateful for their time. I can say with confidence that the mentors added an element of excitement and rigour to the programme, and all the groups strongly benefitted from their expertise.

After a long Sunday putting together a presentation deck for their ‘Minimum Viable Product’ (MVP), the Androvation event culminated in pitch presentations to a panel of three judges. We heard from a total of four groups on the evening: the first presenting an augmented reality application to bring textbook content to life, the second an online platform to re-think ethical tourism, the third a website to centralise and simplify consumer experiences at busy organisations, and the final group hoping to make scholarships more accessible and easy to apply for. After a long period of deliberating, the judges awarded the winning prize to the third group, InSync, comprised of Monty Hannaford, Lachlan Martin, and Grace Papworth.

In summary, we had an extremely successful Androvation 2019. I would like to thank all the participants this year for their hard work and dedication. I know this process is extremely challenging and intense. We had some brilliant ideas this year, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing them come to fruition. I hope to see the programme continue to grow from strength to strength over the coming years!

Xander Hoskinson (Fr 2018)

Pictured (L-R): Hester Wilson, Steven Hitchcock, Craig Wilson, Lachlan Martin (Fr 2019), Grace Papworth (Fr 2019), Monty Hannaford (Fr 2019)

Photographed by Minami Takahashi (Fr 2014)

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