Catalysr 2018 —A new beginning!
If you like me have read the 2018 Startup Muster report, and are concerned about the data showing Australian startup ecosystem decline from last year, I come bearing some good news.
A figure, that has remained constant is the percentage of founders born outside of Australia, or as we like to call them — Migrapreneurs at 35.7%.
What’s even more promising is that Startup Muster 2018 report also shows that 40% of future founders are born outside of Australia.
We at Catalysr are committed to backing migrapreneurs, to not only increase the diversity of our startup ecosystem but also to capture this big economic opportunity.
I am proud to share that we have launched our Catalysr 2018 pre-accelerator program with a startup bootcamp at Cockatoo Island.
Who is in the Catalysr 2018 program?
After a tough process, we’ve taken in 23 startups (35 migrapreneurs) with big ambitions, to join us for the next 6 months and make their startup idea a reality.
Our migrapreneurs are made up of people who come from 24 different countries, with roughly 40% of startups led by female migrapreneurs, tackling a large variety of problems from sustainability and sharing economy to health-care and unemployment.
You can check out our Migrapreneurs and their startups ideas on our website and more bootcamp photos on here.
Mentors, Partners and Collaborators
I want to thank our EIRs: Ian, Paula, Jon, Ryan, Rai, Ankita and Rosary for joining us on this journey to inspire and empower our migrapreneurs.
Secondly, I want to thank all of our mentors who took out their valuable time to join us at the Startup bootcamp: Clive Mayhew, Alan Jones, Anuraj Gambhir, Peter Sanders, Claudia Barriga-Larriviere, Tom Bass, Brian Lim, Meera Rajagopalan, Lena Tsalimova, Syed Mansoor, Matthew Daniell and Stefanie King.
Thirdly, I want to do a shout-out to our volunteers, Kanwal Nazim, Emmanuel Nsanga, Wahab Vohra, Maya Marcus, Louise Yeh who helped us make it happen.
Also a big thank you to our partners CGU Insurance and Vasudhara Foundation for providing us the means to run the program and our venue partners EnergyLab, ACU Collaborate Plus, Grounded Space and Foundation for Young Australians to generously provide office-space for our cohort.
And finally, a big thank you to our community manager — Chelsea Zeller for pulling it all together
Join us!
We’re just getting started on this program and have a long journey ahead of us.
