Just a quick heads up to let you all know that I will be going on holidays until the end of July

It’s a holiday that has been a long time coming and one that will see me in places with little to no Internet access. That means TechNation Australia will essentially go into hibernation until August.

That having been said, keep the emails coming if you’re up to anything cool and I’ll get onto it on my return.

Now, while there’ll never be a real substitute for your TechNation Australia yearnings, there are definitely some places you can go to to get through the month of July without me

Sites to get news on the local tech startup scene:

• Tech Wired AU- - Ben Grubb does a great job of covering the broader Aussie tech scene including some stories on local tech startups. Check it out.
• Silicon Beach Google Group-  Probably the most active forum for aussie tech startup people. Might seem a little noisy if all you’re after is news, but will give you a feel for what the community is  up to and what issues are concerning them
• Anthill Magazine- Really good Aussie site for entrepreneurs run by the impressive James Tuckerman and his team

Events to keep an eye on

• BootupCamp  - Starting this weekend and running for 2 weeks. Don’t know if there are still spaces but either way I’m looking forward to seeing what the teams can come up with
• Growth Town 4 - July 28th. Definitely worth going to if you’re post-start and trying to grow
• For all other events check out the Australian Tech Events calendar 

See you in August…

An article from Brad Feld today on how they’re trying to come up with a name for the Colorado tech scene got me thinking about a few things.

For those who don’t know, Colorado is turning into a real 2nd-tier tech startup centre in the US (and, as such, the world)

A lot of that would have to do with Feld’s TechStars:

TechStars is a mentorship-driven seed stage investment fund. Each year we run a summer-long program in Boulder, Colorado and Cambridge, Massachusetts. We’re very selective - each year hundreds of companies apply to the program and we only take about ten per city. These companies get up to $18,000 in seed funding, a summer of intensive top-notch mentorship, and the chance to pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists at the end of the summer.

Of course, as Paul Graham explains, you need a lot of things to be in place to create a startup-hub, i.e. you can’t just create a TechStars anywhere, so no doubt a lot of work was done by a lot of people to get Boulder to where it could have a chance of success.

So, what’s intesting about the article? My first thoughts were:

1. Hey, we’ve been there in Sydney, trying to figure out what a good brand for the local scene is. Good to see that someone like Brad Feld thinks branding his local scene is important too.
2. Feld seems to share the same disdain as I do for putting the word “Silicon” in the brand of any area outside of Silicon Valley (maybe that’s just interesting form a personal POV…)
3. They’ve managed to get the Governor of Colorado to recognise ICT (with an understanding that that incorporates tech startups!) as the fifth pillar of economic development in Colorado, joining bio, aerospace, tourism, and the new energy economy.

The last one of these freaked me out a little. I mean - they got the state Governor, Bill Ritter, to realise that ICT should form part of the economic development strategy of the state - wow.

And check out this quote from the Governor (bold is mine):

Brad Feld has been this remarkable presence in Colorado and as Governor, I can take advantage of having a person like Brad talk to me, help me, mentor me about this field, about ICT (Information, Communications, Technology) and about the world of entrepreneurship and his cohort in this is Phil Weiser

Is there any state Premier (or territory Chief Minister) in Australia you can think of that:

1. Is paying more than lip-service to entrepreneurs in the ICT space?
2. Appears to be open-minded enough to publicly say they want to be helped and mentored by a tech startup person on how to build a tech entrepreneurship industry?

That got me thinking.

Is it us? i.e. Have we just not argued our case well enough inside Govenment?

Is it them? i.e. are they just unwilling to listen?

No doubt the answer lies somewhere in the middle, but if Boulder, a city with less than 100,000 people, a city that is only the 11th most populous city in the state of Colorado, a city that is 1/3 the size of Wollongong, FFS - if that city can organise themselves, get the government behind them, and get themselves recognised as a real startup-hub, then surely Sydney can too.

There are some obvious things we need to build on - working more closely with Universities, building a better investment environment, making it more acceptable for people to choose tech startups as a career path - but we’re much closer to the goal than we were just a couple of years ago. I mean, there is a genuine community now, built from the ground up. There is a growing awareness and support of local tech startup endeavours and a slowly growing number of cool tech startups and entrepreneurs that are going out and conquering not only Australia, but the world. That having been said, there’s still a lot of work to be done, so let’s not get complacent.

Oh yeah, and about that naming thing…Scott Yates weighs into the argument with his article “Don’t Name That Trend… Be The Trend!” saying, essentially, ”who cares about the name?”. 

He probably sums it up best when he says:

I don’t know if you noticed, but the people behind the aforementioned revolutionary changes…are not the ones trying to put a name on it. They are too busy doing what they do.

Word!

It’s no secret I’m a big fan of PocketLIfe. I love the fact that it was originally developed by a team at Vodafone Australia and how that is more proof to the world that Australia can be more than just a sales and marketing office for large multi-nationals. I also think the technology is sweet and has the potential to be one of the winners in the location-based services race that’s currently going on.

I’ve been helping test PocketLife on the iPhone for a few weeks now but it was a bit hard to get the full benefit of the app as it was a closed-beta.  As such, I’m glad to say that as of earlier this week PocketLife has been accepted into the iPhone App Store, which means hopefully I’ll be seeing more people I know on there soon

You can get all the details on the PocketLife Blog, but one thing to note is that while the current AppStore version is v0.5 there are upgrades ready to roll as soon as they’re also accepted. (I’ve been testing v1.1 so I can tell you there’s an improved, functioning, version out there). 

Hanno Blankenstein, the leader of the team, tells me that as those new releases are accepted the app will auto-update - so expect the full v1.1 goodness in the near future once you install the app.

I’m looking forward to seeing if this helps PocketLife start to get the critical mass needed to help it reach its full potential.

I’ve been hearing of more and more university activities that are helping to give students experience and understanding of what being an entrepreneur is and also helping to make it a valid career choice - something we desperately need more of here in Australia.

Of course we also desperately need more activity from our Computer Science and Engineering faculties, but creating the business minds that will hopefully one day partner with the technical minds is a good step in dragging our top students away from the corporates and towards the types of organisations that will really help Australia thrive.

OK… I should probably stop the rant there before it overtakes the article…so onto the news of University-led entrepreneurship activities that I’ve heard of recently…

1. Melbourne University Entrepreneurial Challenge 2009
   On May 21st the MBS Entrepreneurship Club hosted the 10th annual Melbourne University Entrepreneurs’ Challenge Awards Night at Ormond College.
   While not limited to students, there’s a strong focus on them and alumni. Was also great to see Rentoidgrab 2nd place and$10,000 in prizes. Well done to Steve Sammartino and the team.
   -
2. Sydney University courses in Entrepreneurship
   Sydney University recently hired Massimo Garbuio as a new lecturer in Entrepreneurship for their Faculty of Economics and Business, Discipline of International Business.The course he ran last semester pulled in Entrepreneurs from various fields, including tech startups, and got the students to work closely with those entrepreneurs to understand what the whole process is really like
   -
3. RMIT Entrepreneurship and Prizes
   Jacqui Teo has was approached by RMIT 4 years ago to be a mentor/business coach to their Entrepreneurship students. These are 3rd/4th year business students that are looking for practical guidance to prepare them from the real world. They submit business plans for their businesses and she judges between 12-20 a year and helps RMIT select the ones which could be real businesses. RMIT awards them prize monies which help them start their business and she continues coaching / helping these young entrepreneurs in aspects such as board management, raising capital, set up etc.
   -

I’m sure there’s more going on at our universities and other educational institutions (please feel free to add any other activities you know of in the comments), but if these 3 are anything to go by we might soon have a new generation of entrepreneurs ready to hit the streets. The secret now will be guiding them towards tech instead of more traditional Australian endeavours.

Speaking of which, don’t forget BootupCamp is starting this weekend. Last time I heard there were a couple of places left, but check out the details HERE for more info.

Caught up with Chris Beckett at the recent Barcamp Sydney 5 and heard all about an incredible new place he’s set up in Sydney under the Hackerspace title.

From their site:

Hackerspaces are community-operated physical places, where people can meet and work on their projects.

Our goal is to form a self-sustaining local group of totally dedicated technology enthusiasts, who meet regularly and form collaborative teams to learn, share and make things.

I pulled out my new Creative Vado HD (not a paid plug, juts me wanting to promote a cool new toy that I love) and did a quick interview with Chris which explains more about what he’s up to.

I was amazed at what Chris and the Hackerspace people have managed to set up at Kogarah. I won’t spoil the video but it really takes our efforts to build places where tech startup people can come together and hang out to a whole new level.

We spoke more after the interview and I have to say that Chris is a really impressive guy, with a real drive to improve the local scene. I can’t wait to see what comes out of the Hackerspaces Sydney project.

Re: the interview, the whole idea of doing interviews on the fly is a bit new to me, i.e. not being able to go back and forth with questions and then penning a post over time, so don’t be too harsh on me I plan to do more of these interviews from now on so hopefully I can get them up to a suitable standard.

For now, though - sit back and enjoy (and check out the cameos from some of Sydney’s top tech startup people in the background). Also, make sure you check out the Hackerspaces wiki when you can.

The Australian Web Industry Association (AWIA) is a West Australian based organisation which has done great things for Web startups, particularly in Western Australia, but also across Australia.

One of the AWIA’s activities is the Australian Web Awards. These used to be the WA Web Awards but they now have a national focus and the rest of Australia can get in on the award action.

The categories for the awards include:

1. Student
2. Blog
3. Virtual - for small and micro businesses without a “real” shopfront
4. Retail - online transactional site (payment methods varied) B2C, C2C
5. Sell to people - for services not for commercial use e.g brochure sites
6. Sell to corporate - for services for commercial use B2B, B2G, G2B
7. Government - local, state & federal
8. Education
9. Media
10. Not for Profit
11. EOTW  - for innovation
12. Mobile - for sites seen in mobile devices
13. Arts & Events

And the judges are some of Australia’s top Web Industry names:

• Helen Burgess (Judging Chairperson)
• Gary Barber
• Cameron Adams
• Matt Balara
• Steve Baty
• Sonja Bernhardt
• Ben Buchanan
• Simon Eder
• Nick Hodge
• Marc Lehmann
• Russ Weakley
• Matt Voerman
• Kevin Yank

If you’re keen to enter (please make sure you read the criteria HERE) you have until the end of next Tuesday (7th July) to get your entry in.

The winners will be presented their awards in various ceremonies across Australia throughout September and October.

Check out more details on the awards HERE.