Accelerator Demo Day Pitching
Well, the dust has settled on the 3rd edition of the qutbluebox summer Accelerator program. The Accelerator culminated in a Demo Day where seven teams pitched to an enthusiastic crowd of over 100 people followed by a showcase of their products and services in the new QUT Foundry space in D Block at Gardens Point.
Every year we work to put more into the Accelerator program, and we’re rewarded with better and better outcomes. This year we had a diverse set of startup teams, ranging from a new beverage company through to an e-services business, and a number of hardware ventures. The seven startups that took part in the program were:
- Conpago: A device which creates a social connection between seniors and their families.
- Fundu: A platform to connect creatives with investors.
- Canary Scuba: A visual gauge that monitors tank pressure and breathing rate for scuba divers.
- Budget Eating Buddy: A price comparison service that finds the cheapest supermarket for your shop.
- Spring & Grove: A naturally flavoured carbonated spring water with real fruit flavours and nothing else.
- WineMinder: A device and app designed to monitor your wine and tell you when to drink wine at its best.
- Lagswitch: Uses commercial computer games to train executive teams and develop life skills in students.
qutbluebox Accelerator Teams
We were also excited to have a range of founders in the program this year, including three female founders, current students and alumni as well as a current staff member! In addition, the teams came to us through an equally varied set of pathways, from a casual meeting at one of our weekly Startup Roundtables through to our Innovation Challenge and the postgrad orientated Ubercamp amongst others.
What this reflects is that there is an increasing amount of entrepreneurial activity occurring in every corner of the university. This means we’re seeing a wider range of quality ideas being developed by highly capable entrepreneurs which creates the raw material that we help shape through our Accelerator program.
Finally, we were excited to have not only our own dedicated co-working space to run the Accelerator in for the first time this year, but a full time Entrepreneur in Residence to run the program. Both add huge value to the participating teams, and it showed at the end of the three months with some of the best pitching and new business ventures we’ve seen to date.
All of this means that QUT’s push to give members of its community the skills to choose their own future is continuing to bear fruit. And the Accelerator is an opportunity to give students, staff and alumni the opportunity to apply those skills in real ventures in a way that helps define the future for themselves and those around them.
If you’re interested in the Accelerator program, you can reach us at enquiries@qutbluebox.com.au.
