Dear Enterprize Community
As most of you probably know, I finished in Enterprize on Friday 25th May 2018. Its not my decision, I am not happy with it but it is a decision nonetheless. Its incumbent on us all (and in particular me) that I/we accept the decision so as to protect the fantastic organisation that Enterprize is.
I have been in Enterprize for approximately 16 months. In that time (and even though the University of Tasmania has been paying my salary), there has been no formal relationship established between the two organisations. My contract with the University is coming to a close at the end of September 2018. We were unable to agree a way to allow me stay in Enterprize whilst I tried to negotiate an extension of the current arrangement. My primary difficulty is the family situation I find myself in. Its imperative that I get clarity on what happens beyond September so I can plan and manage whatever is necessary should there be no extension to my contract. We are where we are now as a result.
I am in the process of transitioning back to the University who have been very helpful in that regard.
I am in the process of transitioning back to the University who have been very helpful in that regard.
I want to let it be known that I really enjoyed the 16 months in Enterprize. We have had some notable wins. We ran over 150 events between Hobart and Lanceston in that time. We have had expert international speakers like Prof. Paul Coyle and Andy Shannon impart their wisdom. We have supported a number of hackathons like UHack, GovHack and TasJam. We have nurtured local tech meetups like the .net group, the linuxusers group, the AWS group. We have supported technology training through companies like HP. We have hosted innovation events for Tasnetworks and HydroTas. We have engaged different programs in State Growth like the Digital Ready program and supported their efforts. We have 15 early stage startups between the two facilities getting ongoing support and networking for their ideas.
In the LoRa initiative, we have built Australia's first open innovation IoT network in Launceston (using local hardware from Definium Technologies and a data back end data platform called senaps from CSIRO/Data61). 14 projects from 10 organisations presented their efforts using LoRa on May 9th of this year. One of those companies, Bitwoke, has just been accepted into the Cicada super incubator (the first time a Tasmanian entity has achieved this) - an incubator considered to be one of the best in the world.
On the Social Enterprise side, we have engaged organisations like Code Club, Coder College and the wonderful Bob Elliott through his robotics work with children. Our new Family Code Club is going from strength to strength. On the professional side we have built fantastic connections to ACS (through the wonderful Marc Portlock and Tristan Richards), TasICT and AISA. We are running regular events jointly that are of benefit to everyone.
Even though we had no formal relationship with the University, huge efforts were made to cultivate a good relationship with them. Giant Margarita (as always) were a pleasure to work with. Robogals was an amazing event. The two winning UHack teams, Sarox and Control Freaks have been supported through Enterprize. I gave a number of talks for the UTas Peter Underwood centre, the University College and UHack promotional talks. I wrote a social entreprenership breadth module for the University. We even had a ‘stealth’ innovation retreat for the ICT school in the Evercreech centre. Just recently we have formally invited the Vice Chancellors Leadsership award team to have a permanent presence in Enterprize Hobart and we were about to run the first open access Entreprenership lecture series in conjunction with the University in Enterprize.
Over the next couple of weeks a number of great events are planned. The second innovation Isle event, scheduled for the 5th June is going ahead. This is a forum where the big energy companies and the small innovative clean energy startups are coming together to discuss how to work together. The glue to all of this is Energylab, essentially a startup fund, looking to establish themselves in Tasmania. Following this, the plan is to run an Energy Hackathon the last week in June to see can we galvanise some real collaborations and investment in this crucially important domain. A domain that Tasmania has an opportunity to be a world leader in.
Myriad games are also planning a games Hackathon in the next few months and Enterprize is establishing itself as a place where the gaming industry is really supported in Tasmania.
We have submitted a number of grants to support Enterprize activity going forward. Kath was recently successful in the building the Tasmanian population submission and we should shortly know if we are successful in the Building Better Regions grant (which was submitted in December 2017).
Over the last year we managed a number of significant staff changes together with a move to a new premises in Hobart. All of this was done with very limited resources, lots of people power and immense goodwill.
And all through this, we have a built a strong community of people (I think of Kath, Joe, James, Diana, Bruno, Tristan, Marc, Tim, Pablo, Nick, Kobi, Kevin, Peter, Paul, Kristy, Ian, Georgie, forgive me if I have forgotten anyone) who are supporting one another when it is most needed - that very early stage when entrepreneurs decide to actually bring their ideas into the real world.
And to this community, I say thank you. I count you all as my friends. I really hope we can stay in touch. I am always a phone call or an email away if I can help in any way.
I think we can collectively be very proud!
Best wishes for the future
Gary
P.S to that end, I assume I can still use the free co-working space?
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