ANU Innovation Symposium

Published in the Research School of Physics Event Horizon
Vol42 Issue39 3–7 October 2016

The Symposium is being held on Wednesday 5 October 2016 and is aimed at engaging and empowering students to succeed in the innovation industry. The program has shaped up to be rather exciting, with a series of great speakers, including Cindy Reese Mitchell, a Social Impact Strategist from UC who will be giving the keynote on “Good-Doers versus Do-Gooders”, Ms Stephanie Kimber, Grand Challenges Manager at DFAT innovationXchange who will be leading a session around social innovation in the development space,  Dr Sarah Pearson, CEO of CBRIN who will be taking students on a tour of CBRIN as well as participating on our panel about Australia’s Future in 50 Years alongside a few local young Social Innovators and Entrepreneurs including Hannah Wandel, CEO of Country to Canberra, and Usman Chohan, CFO of Taqanu. Additionally, a session which may be of interest to you all is “Diversity and Inclusion: An Imperative for Innovation” being facilitated by the May Group.

On top of all this, we are attempting to run our first Student Led Social Accelerator called ANU Impact, a competition which embodies ANUSA’s and Fifty50’s belief that students are one of ANU’s greatest natural resources and they have the creativity, capacity, and ambition to shape our future, rethinking ANU’s problems today. It is a competition which is founded on the belief that students are those best placed to develop solutions to problems they face. To participate, all students need to do is submit their idea and provide a brief description as well as a picture which best represents it. From here, all eligible ideas (i.e. those which aren’t offensive, illegal etc.) are voted on by the community, with the top 10 being given the chance to pitch during the Innovation Symposium on the 5th for the chance to win up to $1,000 seed funding as well as a dinner with all the Symposium speakers and panellists, hosted by Professor Shirley Leitch.  The deadline for idea submission will be 10pm Tuesday 27 September.

You can find out more information as well as how to register below.

ANU Innovation Symposium - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/anu-innovation-symposium-registration-27620408385

ANU Impact - http://www.anusa.com.au/anu-impact/