Not-for-profit StartupAUS today announced the return of the Startup Spring Festival, a festival of events and activities that aim to celebrate, promote and encourage the startup community.
Running throughout Australia from 13 October to 3 November, Startup Spring will feature over 165 events dedicated to building interest in the startup sector and encouraging entrepreneurship to Australians.
Last year marked the festival’s debut, and saw 6,000 people attend over 150 events throughout the country. Peter Bradd, StartupAUS board member and entrepreneur-in-residence at Fusion Labs, says that he and his fellow board members were surprised at the support that the festival had received.
“In the past few years Australia’s tech startup eco-system has begun to emerge as a vibrant place for new businesses to be born. When we first came up with the idea of a grassroots national festival to celebrate and promote the tech startup community we never imagined we’d get such a strong response,” Bradd said.
A variety of events will be featured over the three-week festival, including the Tech23 Conference, which will see 23 tech start ups present their business to an audience of over 400 potential investors, mentors, entrepreneurs and customers, and the two-day DiG Festival, an event loosely based on the SXSW festivals in Austin, Texas.
“We really hope that the Startup Spring festival will inspire the next generation of Australian entrepreneurs,” says Alan Noble, StartupAUS board member and Director of Engineering for Google.
“Today’s startups can be tomorrow’s Tesla Motors, iRobot, or Google. I believe that, with the right attitude to skills, innovation and entrepreneurship, we can create a very bright future for Australia.”
