Real money allocated to support innovation

 The Government has as part of its support for innovation ,  announced today an investment of  280k bringing to Australia  Masschallenge, who will be JV'ing with Microsoft to develop programmes for startups that will encourage Connection,  Collaboration and Education.

This initiative will encourage idea-pitching competitions, startup boot camps and local and international mentoring.

I absolutely and wholeheartedly endorse and approve this initiative - it's awesome !!! but they should applaud, encourage and continue to build on the success and experience of Australian accelerators and programmes that have been doing the same for many years and have been supported with significant funding by both Liberals and Labour over the years from both Federal and Victorian Government's (Sydney has been behind the 8 ball in this regard)

BSI has been and continues to assist their clients access these programmes  - that have added exponential value to the companies that have benefitted and are continuing to benefit from these programmes. 

With regard to the accelerator programmes, through its incubator ADI, that the government supported from 2002 to 2005, $5m was used to 

- provide education and support through taking 150 companies through an investor ready programme, culminating in them pitching their opportunity in front of 200 high net worth individuals and funds through our bsi investor forums held nationally 

- Provided an opportunity to take 30 companies to Silicon Valley enabling them to pitch their opportunities to VCs and potential alliance partners 

- 24 companies being directly invested in by ADI - which facilitated in excess of $500m of private investment over the past 10 years.

- Our incubatees scoring a number of home runs - while others have  "failed forward"- 

- notable investees successes have included :- 

- NewLease - that listed under Rhype - current asx valuation +$100m

- Spreets - sold to Yahoo for $40m 

- Redbubble - currently listing at a valuation of $300m

- Adlogic and My recruitment plus - still private but kicking significant goals in online recruiting

- Retriever - being the major player in field force technology - setting the pace for current technology

- Memsid morphing into asx listed bluechip - leading the field in rfid technology

- Referron - a technology close to my heart - adding value to thousands of business's - helping them easily refer and be referred with 3 taps of their phone, enabling them to track measure and reward referrals! ( my mates would be disappointed if I didn't give my obligatory plug!!!)

The investment of $5m (as one of 8 other incubators ) in 2002-2005 have resulted in  - in excess of $500m to the incubatees that were supported. Many of those entrepreneurs supported by these programmes are now the fabric of innovation in Australia today.

The reason for such significant leverage was that the government provided the spark - that encouraged private enterprise to fuel the flame. 

The incubator programme should have continued , but stopped due to change of government or budget cuts, although all reports clearly showed that the roi of the funding was significant!

The Turnbull $1.1b initiative is genius! It will encourage enterprise and the massive pot of superannuation available to invest in this all important sector - as long as these companies are educated, have a clear plan and an opportunity for exponential growth.

We can already see this happenning with 4 Recent Australian funds committing $800m to the innovation sector.

It's interesting to see the hype of the $280k of Masschallenge when the Victorian Government (who gets it) has just allocated $60m to support accelerators over 3 years, making Victoria a place to be for innovation! I haven't seen this in the news? 

Startups and innovators should not be used as a political football.... They should be supported and nurtured for the benefit of all Australians! 

Bsi looks forward to playing a part in The Innovation game to 2020 helping Innovative companies grow through Connecting Collaborating and Educating - helping them create ther generational legacies.

It's going to be an exciting and rewarding time for Innovation in Australia.

Some of the current government programmes include:-

The export market development grant - encouraging exporters to take risks - marketing their products and services to overseas countries - knowing that 50pc of their marketing spend can be recoups in the form of a grant to a maximum of $150k per annum. This scheme has been paired back - where exporters don't get their full entitlement - although the kpis show that for every dollar the government supports these companies, $12 is returned to australia in export revenue - increasing employment and tax dollars, providing significant benefit to Australia and its stakeholders.

Research and Development Tax Concessions - whereby innovators can get back up to 45pc of their r and d spend - encouraging them to innovate take risks and allowing them to fail - knowing that all is not lost

Commercialisation Australia - with a range of programmes - encouraging education and collaboration to innovative companies looking to grow their business

Vet fee help and state government programmes , investing billions of dollars up skilling the Australian workforce - getting them ready for the inevitable shift that is happenning - replacing most current jobs that exist today with technology. 

If you are interested in finding out more - 

Say "yes" in the comment below - or add to the conversation 

What is the one thing that leaders will need to be successful in a disruptive market?

Leaders who have redefined industries, and made markets beat to the sound of their own drum, all have a common trait.

Successful people are 100% confident that, whatever the challenge, they will be able to figure it out- and at the same time, they are 100% willing to forgo everything they think they know and admit to knowing nothing. (INC magazine)

 They are not scared to fail - in fact they embrace it - because "failing " to them is part of the learning process. If they are certain of a result they are not pushing boundaries and by definition - are not growing.

They want to know everything about their craft and the industry they're in, and they realise that it is continually changing and there needs to be continual learning and adapting. 

They know that every disruptive idea comes from the space of what they don’t know that they don’t know.

They realise that creating new markets—new products for new customers—is what’s disruptive and therein lies growth.

They quickly Identify what part of their business model is dying (or dead) and have the hard discussions about the implications for their business.

They have the ability to inspire their team to continue with them on the journey even though the future may be uncertain! 

They realise that a state of vulnerability is a positive as it allows them to constantly reinvent themselves, their companies and  the industries they play in! 

As my mentor Allen Pathmarajah says

You can only grow if your cup is empty. If your cup is full - there is no place to grow! 

There needs to be slack in people's days giving them time to think, innovate, fail and grow!

Who do you know that you believe is successful?

Do you believe that that person regards himself as a success? 

The upside to disruption

Inspired from Uschi SchreiberChair, Global Accounts Committee & Global Vice Chair, Markets at EY

Disruption may seem like a scary word sometimes, but it shouldn’t be.  The world is changing - and when there is change there are opportunities 

 Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are fundamentally reinventing the workforce. Drones and driverless cars are transforming supply chains and logistics and challenging policymakers to rethink existing approaches to infrastructure and regulation.

@ Changing consumer preferences and expectations are also having a massive impact on industry — most notably in millennials and Generation Z. These groups are leading the change in consumption patterns and demand for everything from cars to real estate to entertainment.

 @ Jobs and employment are potentially at risk - and the current norm of a job is changing.

Business leaders and governments will have to understand this and work together to strategically redeploy people to new roles and offer retraining and education to growing sectors. The winners will be those who can identify the problems  - and for every problem there are many solutions, which result in opportunities . Change and disruption is inevitable - Government's will have to do this in an environment of social stability. Not an easy ask! 

Those that embrace change and disruption and are not afraid to make mistakes and take risks and fail and transform the way they operate – will be the winners.

We are discussing what leaders need to think about in this new world to survive in today’s environment and to get ready for the future. New ideas and technologies are rapidly disrupting traditional models; we’re examining how organizations and governments can adapt.

 Here are some key takeaways from Day 1 of the retreat:

1.  Creating new markets—new products for new customers—is what’s disruptive and therein lies growth.
2. Innovation has to become everyone’s DNA at an organization. The tone is set at the top, but it’s not someone’s title or corner office.
3. Every disruptive idea comes from the space of what we don’t know that we don’t know.
4. You can’t expect innovation without building slack into people’s days, give them time to think and create.
5. Identify what part of your business model has already died and have the hard discussions about the implications for your business.
6. Achieving cognitive diversity with your workforce is as important as other kinds of diversity.

 Today’s disruptive environment is ripe for new market opportunities. Every industry and government body must rethink how to connect to their clients and constituents. Asking the right questions and not jumping to conclusions will also help make it clear that they are open to innovation as a way of life, not as lip service.

 Leaders in every industry are responding to shifts that would have seemed unimaginable even a few years ago. Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are fundamentally reinventing the workforce. Drones and driverless cars are transforming supply chains and logistics and challenging policymakers to rethink existing approaches to infrastructure and regulation.

 Changing consumer preferences and expectations are also having a massive impact on industry — most notably in millennials and Generation Z. These groups are leading the change in consumption patterns and demand for everything from cars to real estate to entertainment.

 Responding to these forces, including the potential negative impacts on job availability and employment, is one of the biggest strategic imperatives facing today’s business leaders and policymakers. Governments and businesses will have to work together to strategically redeploy people to new roles and offer retraining and education to growing sectors. Through all of this, they will have to figure out how to bear the resulting costs while maintaining social stability. 

 At a time when there are many unknowns and no easy answers, it’s all the more important to first ask the right questions. This is our primary purpose this week.

 Behind every challenge is an opportunity. Our approach of asking better questions seeks to find the upside of disruption, which in turn helps build a better working world. The ultimate better question is how you find the opportunity in the challenge. How do you seize the upside of disruption?

 The era of being afraid to make mistakes and take risks is over. Over the next 5 to 10 years, those that embrace the upside of disruption – that transform the way they operate – will be the winners.

Venture Capital in Australia: New appointments strengthen Innovation and Science...

Venture Capital in Australia: New appointments strengthen Innovation and Science...: The new board members and one reappointment are: Dr Alan Finkel AO, Chief Scientist (Deputy Chair) Ms Maile Carnegie, CEO Google Aus...

How Augmented Reality is changingbthebfave of retail

Robert ScobleFuturist at Rackspace, the #1 managed cloud company

Life and Tech #41: Cosmetic Retailing of the Future

February 26, 2016 • 131 Views • 16 Likes • 1 Comment

This week I got a very rare look inside Sephora’s Innovation Lab in San Francisco, where they test out new store concepts.

While I was there, I met with Bridget Dolan, the head of innovation for Sephora, who showed me what’s currently possible inside retail stores.

That video is at:
https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153906685284655/ 

She showed me how Sephora is using augmented reality on signage and other items in the stores. You aim your phone at the sign, and the sign has virtual items that pop off of it.

In another demo, I saw how you can virtually try on lipstick. You aim your phone at your face and then click on various products and shades.

Fantastic stuff, but our conversations went a lot further. Sephora has developed a color match system that keeps track of not only your purchases, but your color preferences, so that you can easily match other products in the future.

I also got to see the importance of Sephora’s community, hosted on Lithium, which they call “Beauty Talk.” http://community.sephora.com/sephora/ 

This community includes both employees in stores as well as everyday customers, who discuss Sephora products. On an associated site called “Beauty Board,” they show off their latest makeup and discuss how they did it. http://gallery.sephora.com/ 

Sephora uses those communities to discover new trends, like contouring, and then quickly develop new products based on those trends and get them into stores. Bridget showed me one such product aimed at the contouring trend they discovered several years ago, and said they’re selling tons of those kits.

They also use beacons to let customers automatically bring up their shopping lists when they enter the stores, among other features. But, they also said they were proceeding very carefully with such features because they don’t want to freak out customers or make them feel uneasy with tracking technologies.

Like other innovators who are using beacons, such as the Coachella music festival, this team focuses on delivering utility to customers and making sure they aren’t freaked out.

One last thing that got my attention -- they aren’t pushing augmented reality as hard as other apps on the market are. 

Some apps, like this magic mirror, let you see entire makeup sets, while Sephora so far has focused only on lipstick: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153904336884655 

This is because they want to make sure the quality of the experience matches Sephora’s brand promise. Colors must match exactly to what the products actually deliver.

Sephora is hugely important to the future of retailing and you regularly see their work demoed on stage at Apple and other keynotes. They’re worth paying attention to, and I was so happy I got the chance to do a live video with this incredible team.

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Scoble World Tour, research for new book “Beyond Mobile”: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153910905124655 

While on the road I’m seeing companies like RealSpace 3D, which does amazing audio systems for VR headsets: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153896359244655/ 

Here’s the Futurecast I did at CES with Andrew Keen: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153894755694655&set=a.10150326718589655.360975.501319654 

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Microsoft shows off Hololens (its version of augmented reality glasses) at TED:
https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153910964134655 

The Meta video is coming March 2nd. First images of Meta’s demo are here: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153908499494655 

If you want a taste of augmented reality, visit the Hunger Games demo at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, or watch this video: https://www.facebook.com/shel.holtz/videos/10156495931695368/ 

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How will VR change the way you sell things? Check out this demo about how condo sales are changing: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153908693704655/ 

VR Studios builds motion capture rooms for enterprises. Here its founder shows off one such room and discusses how enterprises are using them to both design new things, but also sell new things, like condos that haven’t yet been built: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153908566834655/ 

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Investor Mark Suster breaks down valuations: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153901930349655 

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Nice list of tools to use in business: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153902913949655 

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Apple’s CEO Tim Cook spoke up against a government attempt to get Apple to hack a terrorist’s iPhone and Rackspace’s CTO, John Engates, agrees here: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153909417639655 
I agree with both.

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Can you keep up with me? Rackspace employee Thomas Weeks wrote up what I did in just one day in Virginia. Whew! https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153898406624655 

Hope you have a great week, if you see me checking out lipstick don’t worry, OK? :-)

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Uber is changing the way Employees engage!

• 
  
  
  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uber-redefining-work-week-olivia-barrow
  
  
  
  
  The 9-to-5 job has been out of popularity for several years. Employers have got to offer flexible schedules as much as possible in order to retain the most in-demand workers.
• 
  
• But the Uber business model takes flexibility to a new level! 

Uber’s ability to attract hundreds, or even thousands, of drivers in every city it operates in stems from the strong appeal of the opt-in work week. Drivers can choose to work whenever they want, and for as many hours as they want, and there’s no need to ask anyone for vacation.

“Talent wants to opt in and out at their leisure, it’s the ultimate convenience."

Imagine if  you are required to work about 40 hours a week, but on your own schedule, with an option to work at home? 

In a typical accounting firm, working full-time as a salaried employee means you can work as few as 30 hours a week, or as much as 80 hours a week, if that’s how long it takes to meet your deadlines. I’ve seen many of my colleagues in the accounting profession deal with the ugly side of that work-week model.

In that model, a few things change for the employer. They may not always be able to expect that you’ll be at your desk at any given time, and they may need to develop new requirements about cell phone accessibility, but ultimately, they can still develop job descriptions for the same number of people to accomplish the same amount of work.

With the opt-in work week, everything changes.

Say that my skill as an accountant , a firm is willing to hire me, even though I only want to work 20 hours a week most of the time, but I still want to receive ample wages to fuel my activities for the additional 20 hours a week I now have to fill.

Someone else only wants to work 10 hours. And another worker has a highly specialized skill, but wants to spread her talent out among several ventures, so she only has five hours a week to spare.

Each of these employees now acts like their own consulting firm, and the employer has to adopt a new team-based model for ensuring the job gets done on time.

For Uber, the ‘job’ is picking up all of the passengers who request a ride at a given time, within a reasonable amount of time. It makes no difference to Uber if that is accomplished by two drivers or 20. If it can’t be done in a reasonable amount of time with only two drivers, Uber can offer additional incentives to bring in more drivers.

To match Uber, my fictitious accounting firm would need to adjust to a team-based deadline model, with incentives to make sure the job gets done on time by somebody, even if the 5-hours-a-week-employee and the 10-hours-a-week-employee both decide not to work this month.

In the past, this kind of flexibility has only been available in independent contractor jobs like tutoring, or appointment-only hair-cutting, or other self-employed gigs, where the only thing at stake was your own income level, not a company’s ability to complete tax returns and audits.

Will the Uber business model actually drive this kind of paradigm shift in the work week? The shift into the ‘gig’ economy is being viewed  with varying reactions from embracing it to eyeing it with caution.

Do you want to work as you need the money, but still having access to coworkers and collaboration and the resources of an employer. Is Uber building a culture where employees are nurtured and looked after? What are Ubers plans for the future?

Uber’s endgame is a driver team entirely composed of robots. The company is at the forefront of discussions of the legal and logistical implications of self-driving cars, because if the company can cut out the cost of the driver, it can offer cheaper rides and earn more profits. The company is currently agnostic about the makeup of its workforce because it doesn’t foresee having one for much longer.

So this makes me wonder. Is the gig economy just an intermediate step in the progression toward a fully automated robotic workforce? And if it is, is there anything we can do to stop it? 

Inspired by Olivia Barrow covers manufacturing, travel and tourism for the Milwaukee Business Journal, and blogs on LinkedIn about life as a young journalist in a rapidly changing media landscape.

Reporter at Milwaukee Business Journal

110 comments

• 

  Mark Sweigart

  Supervisor at PCA

  I agree with Mr. Levens . Are the drivers properly insured - they should all have commercial driving insurance which is about 3to 4 thousand dollars a year. I would bet that 99% of all Uber drivers do not have this coverage and are setting themselves for a big lawsuit

  1 min ago
• 

  William (Bill) Josephs, Ph.D.

  Chronic Pain Psychologist

  Adding to the intelligent critique by Aimee Levens, this article and not all but many respondents behave as if a menial job like an Uber driver sets some sort of standard for business. Most Uber drivers are looking for extra work because they are so poor they can’t make ends meet. This mentality sends one more volley against labor. The article sets impoverished standards among predatory business and the ‘thinkers’ who seek to exploit the working poor; who have been steadily impoverished over the last 40 years. It typifies those who express rationales to support making the worker modular and ultimately unnecessary, consistent with utter yet indirectly expressed contempt for the working class.

  5 mins ago
• 

  John Gottler

  Principal Transportation Engineer Aurecon

  Lets take this one step at a time. Firstly Uber will move to Self Drive Cars where drivers are still needed and this will happen very soon. For Uber to move to autonomous cars they need a completely different operating model. So they would need to work with Apple, Microsoft or Google to achieve such a change as services will not just be travel but travel will be the prime component. The cost of cars to communities and the environment cannot be sustained so it is inevitable that the travel vehicle must change. As we cannot afford the roading changes and it is not acceptable to force human modification on all travelling humans. So it has to be robotic travel.

  13 mins ago
• 

  Arnold Malin

  Accomplished, High Touch Healthcare Executive

  Simple logic in play here...Why have so many employers missed this shift in the labor force? Likely focus on cost containment in the workforce has clouded their thinking!

  25 mins ago
• 

  Frank Qu

  Technical Manager, Professional Scrum Master I, Software Quality Assurance, Financial Enterprise System Implementation

  Workers do need flexibility somehow and someway to accommodate various personal commitments in life whereas drastic shift out of the normal working pattern may not necessarily be a trend for most industries. Like other personal service lines, Über particularly needs round-clock open to its customers, which is echoing the nature of his core business. On the other side, many clinic and life science researches have reported that constant and drastic change in working shift, particularly from day to night, would simply impose workers to several serious health issues. Responsible economic and social development should consider the negative impact, thus reliable alternative such as automatic cruise car or so solution may be better solution to serve society humanly down the road.

  37 mins ago
• 

  Ayodeji Fola-Owolabi

  Grad Student 

  Yes, but they have to aim closer to employment law. Why spoil a good thing?

  51 mins ago
• 

  Ron Segal

  Digital analyst, architect and inventor

  Thought provoking article, which over generalises the potential of 'work when you want'. The Uber model is based on the need for a worker to be 100% available for the duration of each job. Furthermore drivers are effectively interchangeable, i.e. no specialist skills other than driving and perhaps knowledge of an area. It also relies on the supply of drivers who are working always balancing against demand (the worker requires this too). Although perhaps not unique, few other kinds of work would translate well to this scenario. With regards robots (driverless vehicles), they work 24 x 7 x 365 (apart from maintenance outages). They don't care if work isn't available when they are available to work, although the company does as it has effectively paid their salaries (capital investment) for their lifetime! A very different model again.

  1 hour ago
• 

  Bo S.

  Visionary story teller, composer

  imagine a world where everybody was rich, lived in nice homes and worked for fun. an ice cream shop owner, also a millionaire, wakes up every day for work at 6 am because it's fun and he doesn't have to stress over money or having a home. The money is distributed equally, regardless of skill. But nobody gets paid for working, they work for fun. we have everything as it is, internet, politics, technology, the only thing we don't worry over any more is money and taxes. so nobody goes into debt because we eliminate debt. we don't eliminate money, NO we keep that as it is. we just work for fun, and the money in circulation is distributed happily to everybody, and there's no taxes, so we get to keep the money, save it, invest it, or gamble wtih it. how do we buy things, how does our trade economy work? with the money, you save you money pool your money, but you don't borrow. nobody needs to borrow from any institution or anybody. you pool your money together, or the person who created the goods can gift it to you, or set a lower price. the model of this system allows for its citizens to not be overburden with economic stress and in turn create harmony. it's a work in progress and it is feasible.

  1 hour ago
• 

  Nicki Thacker

  author at Freelance

  Just jump in your car and use it as a taxi? What about licence regulations, insurance, etc. that regular taxi drivers must have. Look out!!! Nicki

  1 hour ago
• 

  Brian Heath

  Student at New Zealand Film & Television School

  I'm a freelancer. It's all well & good saying this, but many would have to be financially independent to start with and acquired a mortgage before doing that, as Banks are definitely not with the program, it's hard enough to get a loan even when you have assets and rental income, as Banks are only interested in secure regular job income generally, especially in countries in Latin America , where I live these days when not working or studying. Plus you would have to be so much in demand, in an already saturated freelance market full of good qualified and experienced people, that no-none wants to pay for anymore especially in expatriate gigs - so you could pick and choose when to work. Zero Hour contracts are the reverse of this for employers.

  1 hour ago

Can Virtual Reality change the world

Inspired by Steven Rosenbaums article 

In Huffington post 

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/storytelling-in-the-world_b_9177948.html

Virtual reality creates a sense of "presence," so even if your conscious brain knows what you are observing is virtual, your emotional instincts and responsive brain absorbs the VR fiction a real experience and memory. 

Let me explain ... I was given a vr contraption to use , and told to walk across a soccer field ....as I started walking across the field, the ground came away on either side.... And I was now walking on a narrow bridge, with no support, And a sheer drop on either side.... To me this was totally real, although I knew it couldn't be!!

VR could actually change human consciousness. Inside of it, it feels like real life, it feels like truth. And you feel present in the world that you're inside and you feel present with the people that you're inside of it with.

Sort of like a movie on steroids - where you are part of the set 

VR can become more than a medium, but will fundamentally be an alternative level of human consciousness,

says  Chris Milk, who is at the forefront of exploring and inventing in VR. 

"Virtual reality has the potential to actually change the world. It's a machine, but through this machine we become more compassionate, we become more empathetic, and we become more connected. And ultimately, we become more human."

Or

Do we become more isolated in our own make believe worlds?

What happens when a violent video game feels like murder or when pornography feels like sex. 

How does that change the way humans interact or function as a society or with each other ?

What do you think?