One of the key things that innovation communities do to activate and grow their ecosystem’s potential is to create what the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation refers to as “vibrancy”. They define vibrancy as a composite measure of ecosystem density, diversity, fluidity and connectivity.
At the Canberra Innovation Network, in collaboration with partners and sponsors from the ACT government, higher education and research, private and community sectors, we work on our ecosystem vibrancy through regular meet ups known as First Wednesday Connect. These are held at predictable times (every first Wednesday of the month) and provide an accessible platform for anyone from the ecosystem to meet and work with everyone else. These meetups will have been running for 10 years this June and we have already had over 100 of them, attracting well over 20,000 participants.
Last year alone, we had 3,000 registrations at just these meetups. The innovation community brings these crowds together to interact with our innovators and entrepreneurs, resulting in a variety of outcomes. Founders, access experts, mentors, co-founders, suppliers, testers, customers, government and agency partners, etc. But perhaps more importantly, they access the collective energy, positive vibes, examples of success and learning, community, atmosphere of “can do” and feeling of belonging.
People leave really energised and inspired by every single one of those meetups, and we invite you to join the next one held at the Research School of Physics at the Australian National University. The RSP at the ANU is the national hotspot for advanced Physics research and gave birth to a number of exciting innovative companies, including but not limited to Liquid Instruments, Quantum Brilliance, Thaum, New Frontier Technologies, Flexegraph, Nomad Atomics and others.
When attending First Wednesday Connect you will (1) (re)connect with or get introduced to the Canberra innovation ecosystem, (2) get to know the amazing innovation infrastructure we have in Canberra because this event travels and is held at different locations across our Fondation Member sites, (3) get inspired by a stream of pitches from people who work on or support exciting new innovation projects, (4) develop new connections and collaborations that can lead to new opportunities or the next big world-changing project or initiative.
And when you do, there are plenty of resources in our ecosysem that can help you progress, inlcuding workshops, events, programs and showcases across a number of partners including the Canberra Innovation Network, Canberra Cyber Hub who connect and support the growth of the ACT cyber ecosystem, Innovation Central Canberra who support organisations in their technology-driven journeys to accelerate digitalisation, the Mill House Ventures who run social innovation and social enteprise programs, Lighthouse Innovation Centre who deliver the Canberra small business advisory service, microcredit and export support services, BADJI Program for Indigenous Entrepreneurs deivered by Coolamon Advisors, Campus Plus who run national program for industry embedded PhDs, Screen Canberra, Canberra Makerspace Network (that brings together makerspaces across the ANU, UC, UNSW Canberra and CIT), CSIRO On Porgrams, Agri-food Innovation Institute who connect and support the agtech innovation ecosystem, Capital Angels, local venture capital, mentors and many others.
