Young Starters Competition 2018 winner
The Advance Queensland’s Young Starters Competition received over 45 applications from all over Queensland. Teams were selected based on a careful selection criteria.
The competition launched on April 5th, with successful applications progressing onto stages after completing challenges including, developing marketing plans and business basics activities. Thirty teams then moved onto stage 2, where they were required to submit a 3 - 5-minute pitch video.
Stage 3 of the competition took place over a course of two days, in a Bootcamp style program.
20 of the top teams were invited to the Bootcamp from all around Queensland, from regional areas ( Mackay, Cairns and Rockhampton ).
During the two days intensive Bootcamp, the young starters attended masterclasses, pitch practices and mentoring sessions ( from 40 Mentors across startup, government and corporate industries ).
The top 10 teams selected from the YS Bootcamp moved into the final competition event (The Young Starters Competition Pitch Breakfast) pitching to a panel of judges (Aaron Birkby, CEO Startup Catalyst, Susannah George, Founder of Urban List , Michael Reid Qld State Manager for CISCO and Simone Joyce, Founder of Paypa Plane.
“RCL is pleased to have partnered again with Advance Queensland to deliver an initiative that continues to support youth in business, including regional Queensland. I was impressed by the mix of applications in the competition ranging from software, hardware and services based businesses” said Peta Ellis, CEO at RCL.
RCL Operations Manager Tarryn Thiele expressed how pleased she was with the overall competition. “We wanted to give the young starters an opportunity to be involved in an initiative that supported young entrepreneurship, for them to experience something fun, but also provide valuable business learnings towards their ideas. The Young Starters Competition would not have been possible without the ongoing support from Advance Qld”
Receiving $30,000 worth of prizes, 15-year-old Tom Stolberg is this year’s YS Competition winner. His business pitch Make It Now, specialises in rapid prototyping and large-scale 3D printing with a difference.
The peoples choice award was awarded to the team from Micromelon.
End.
About Young Starters Competition
The Young Starters’ Competition is a competition aimed at connecting, growing and rewarding Queensland’s growing community of young entrepreneurs. This competition is sponsored by Advance Queensland and will provide 20 of the state’s top young entrepreneurs, aged 15-24, the opportunity to travel to one of Brisbane’s premier startup hubs, the Precinct, to compete in a weekend of business development, pitching and networking.
About River City Labs
River City Labs fosters the growth of startup companies wanting to solve big problems. We provide resources to empower, support and connect entrepreneurs. Central to everything we do is a focus on collaboration and connection.
Since 2012 over 460 entrepreneurs have called RCL home. Through our events program we have welcomed more than 16,000 guests into our community by hosting over 500 events aimed at supporting founders on their entrepreneurship journey.
River City Labs powers a range of programs, events and engagement opportunities, enabling our corporate partners to innovate differently and embed their teams within the start-up community.
River City Labs is a human-led organisation ensuring founders always come first and every engagement is underpinned by our core values of ‘Give Learn Grow’, ‘Take Action’ and ‘Always Challenge’.