EduGrowth’s inaugural LaunchPad Business Start business plan competition was a great success. Submissions were accepted from early October by individuals and teams, from across Australia, who are current students, alumni or staff of an Australian tertiary education institution. The business ideas needed to be innovative and created specifically for the education sector. They needed to highlight the impact the idea would have, demonstrate the effectiveness of the idea, as well as prove a clear understanding of the current market.
In its inaugural year, EduGrowth was pleased to receive over 50 submissions to the LaunchPad Business Start business plan competition. All submissions were of a high quality and were assessed by a review panel that included representatives from EduGrowth, Monash University and Deakin University. This process defined five exceptional finalists who then attended interviews with the judging panel prior to presenting their business idea live in Melbourne or online.
As submissions were reviewed in detail three key themes emerged. It is clear that innovators across the country have been focused on a few really critical problems, and the submissions identified broad and varied approaches to tackle them. The themes are:
- Bridging the gap between formal education and employment. Particularly, giving students the experience necessary to operate effectively in a working environment.
- The need to make STEM education more engaging to develop a generation of critical and creative thinkers.
- Making data more accessible to educators to improve their productivity and better implement interventions.
The review panel was very impressed with the quality of the submissions and have committed to providing personalised feedback to all applicants; specifically posing further questions to help them progress and further their concepts.
The competition finals and awards night was held in November at Deakin Downtown in front of a crowded room and broadcast online. Each finalist provided an insightful presentation and answered further questions from the judging panel and the audience, and after a period of deliberation on the night, the winners were announced.
We thank our respected judging panel for supporting early start-up businesses and understand this was a very difficult process due to the high calibre of the submissions.
- Dan Ingvarson – CEO and Co-Founder, Moxie Reader
- Carlos Schafer – Group Executive Education, ASG
- Pauline Farrell – Global Head of Teaching and Learning, Navitas
We also congratulate our winning and finalist companies and wish them every success for progressing their innovative EdTech ideas.
- Research Screener – 1st prize
- Headset – 2nd prize
- Happy Brains – special mention by the judges
- Arludo – finalist
- DEXTO – finalist
Further information about each of our finalists and their EdTech business ideas will be available on our website in due course.
The prizes awarded to our winners and finalists included cash prizes to advance the business idea as well as mentoring sessions from an EdTech Entrepreneur and other products and services to help further the EdTech business.
We thank our generous sponsors for their support:
Plato Project
The Plato Project “Starting a Startup Course” is for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to boost their chances for success through proven strategies and tactics. With over 40 hours of online content, tools and templates you’ll develop the capability required to establish a purpose-driven business from idea conception through to market launch.
Brandollo
Brandollo is an intelligent platform that creates customised marketing plans for small businesses. The platform provides users with a simple and central solution for their marketing needs. Each marketing, PR and Branding plan that Brandollo creates is unique and supported by both tutorial content and team workflow tools. Brandollo saves Startups thousands of dollars in advice and planning.
AWS – Amazon Web Services
The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud provides a broad set of infrastructure services, such as computing power, storage options, networking, and databases, all of which are delivered as a utility on-demand, available in seconds, with pay-as-you-go pricing. Over 125 AWS services are available, spanning data warehousing to deployment tools, and directories to content delivery.
StartCon
Australia’s largest startup and growth conference. The 2-day conference will feature world-famous keynote speakers from some of the largest companies in the world, 600+ startups, 150+ expo floor, networking events, Pitch for $1 Million competition, hackathon and the Annual Australasian Startup Awards.