The buzz was unmistakeable. From the minute I opened the door and walked into Vibewire Youth Inc’s Enterprise Hub, I knew that this was going to be a coffee morning to remember. This final live event in the week-long e-Festival of Ideas, billed as the FastBreak Breakfast, was bringing together five of Australia’s leading young innovators to kick-start a morning of conversation.
Interestingly, the whole festival was held in conjunction with the Australian Innovation Festival which is being built around the Four Cs of Innovation – collaboration, creativity, commercialisation and connection. In speaking with the Co-Director of Vibewire, Mary Nguyen, it was clear that there was something missing in the way that the Australian Innovation Festival was framing innovation – and what was missing was the voice of youth. With the stroke of a pen, Mary added to the Four Cs a single word – “Conversation” – and the tone was set.
Over 70 people braved the early morning traffic to hear Jye Smith talk creativity, Scott Drummond make connections, Isadore Biffin dare us to collaborate, Elias Bizannes challenge our understanding of “commercialisation” and Matt Moore to scare us into conversation. From these brief, four minute speeches, the audience gravitated to breakout areas across the Enterprise Hub space to chat, share ideas and network.
The speeches were captured via Ustream … but the real value was in being there. Hopefully you can make the next one!
Collaboration! Shooting ideas back and forth with other creative people is how great things come about. Such crazy ideas get brought up but that is what leads to something innovative that truly changes things.