Policy Hack 2018

Australia has a vibrant startup ecosystem and things are moving quickly. There are also great opportunities and some challenges to overcome.

Our best chance of making sure Australia is one of the best places in the world to build and grow a startup, is for government, industry and academia to work together. StartupAus, with support of Department of Industry Innovation and Science and the Queensland Government on May 16th  got 160 of the country’s best startup minds for a one-day policy hack to help collaboratively build the next wave of policy in this space.

Managing Director - Troy Haines of theSPACE was invited and attended Policy Hack 2018. 

Coming together to tackle 11 of the biggest issues facing the Australian startup scene and how government policy might be amended to overcome them.

The Policy Hack event will clarify the challenges the sector faces looking ahead, and help identify the best solutions to those challenges. The key topics for the day include:

• Startup Status – a centralised definition of startup to help with access to programs.
• Global Talent Scheme – identifying key components for the ‘startup stream’ of the proposed Global Talent Scheme.
• Attracting International R&D – how does Australia attract international tech companies to conduct more R&D in Australia.
• Going Global – helping more startups become global scaleups..
• Corporate/Startup Collaboration – how do startups get more visibility of the challenges facing corporates and how do corporates get more visibility of solutions offered by startups.
• Data and Impact Measurement – how to measure size, scale and impact of startups to inform public policy.
• Linking Startup infrastructure – startup hubs have developed in all major capital cities – how do we link them with each other and with regional needs.
• Angel Investment – Angel Investment sector is highly fragmented and difficult to navigate, what steps can be taken to improve?
• Local Skills - Australia needs an innovative and creative workforce with the skills and capabilities to secure its future productivity
• Commercialising Public Research – how to improve the number of commercial collaborations between startups and universities eg IP Toolkit.
• Artificial Intelligence: Challenges Ahead – how will AI change the policy landscape now into the future, how can we maximise the gains and minimise the impacts.

More information: https://cecs.anu.edu.au/staff/invitation-attend-policy-hack-2018