The key is to find an entrepreneurial ally on campus, who can help make things happen over the heads of most of their colleagues - someone who 'gets it' and has the power to pull rank.
Many Unis take their levels of post-graduation employment very seriously, and there's no secret that most content is targeted towards "getting a graduate position with a big company with a safe and secure future" - this is understandable both because it is the common path, as well as the fact that it is coming from people who've chosen to shelter in the safe, tenured and socialised world of the university system. Ideas that students should come up with an idea and if necessary drop out to follow it through with passion and conviction, taking great personal risks along the way (at a time in their life where the opportunity cost of failure is the lowest) in my experience is viewed as a disease or a virus to be eradicated in many educational establishments, even though these same establishments look on at the success of Microsoft and Facebook and many other companies started by dropouts. Unis and students are, in my view, the most fertile territory to find and nurture entrepreneurs, but I think the secret is probably for people to volunteer to 'adopt' a University patch and in the process find those maverick entrepreneurial evangelists who can help get the word out there against the passive/aggressive resistance of most of their peers. Rather than hoping a 5 min encounter at a careers day when we're competing with the glitz of Deloitte, I'd recommend running lunch time presentations or workshops on campus, which are promoted predominantly through engineering/csci/commerce faculties/schools and which feature a successful tech entrepreneur (and they don't need to be rock-stars), and possibly done by an entrepreneurship club or something similar, with a focus on getting students to startup weekends, promoting startmate, getting them along to one of m...@pollenizer's one-day workshops and other things of the sort are the right path. I'm looking to get something going with the University of Wollongong (my alma mater) next year - if others want to nominate their own institutions where they've got some connections, we can try and put our efforts around some common content to make it a lot easier and less of a time drain on each of us by sharing the load. Getting back to Elias' first question about what to do with SiliconBeach.org - I'm still thinking about that :-( -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bart Jellema Sent: Tuesday, 2 November 2010 6:52 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [SiliconBeach] Re: We now have siliconbeach.org I love this idea! Let's see which unis really support entrepreneurship :) Who feels like driving this? I'm happy to help out, but won't be in Sydney until Christmas. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Trindaz Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 7:22 AM To: Silicon Beach Australia Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: We now have siliconbeach.org Very true Kim. Has anyone tried getting a stall in amongst all the other recruiters at graduate job fairs? It'd be cool to have a 'Just start something yourself' stall run by Silicon Beach with other uni entr. groups to introduce the idea to people and provide links to resources and paint a picture of what it would be like for people who've never thought about it. Maybe some kind of competition for first year uni students - a Business Execute competition (as opposed to Business Plan). On Nov 1, 6:29 pm, Sean Marshall <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Kim > > Funny you should mention that. I am finalising the details on a > national platform for collaboration between university entrepreneurial > societies across Australia. > > One of the services we will be offering is a centralized service for > students and start-ups to organise internships. > > More details coming over the next couple weeks. > > Best Regards > > Sean > > > > > > > > On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 4:29 PM, Kim Chen <[email protected]> wrote: > > To Trindaz/David's point, I would love to see a large-scale startup > > internship program between the unis and the community (eg., Startup > > Job Fair each year at the unis). This would help drive interest in > > startups from uni students and startups try out great talent/get > > earlier dibs on top talent. Many, many students at Stanford tried > > for cool startup internship opportunities before more "boring" > > corporate internships during the summers. > > > On Nov 1, 1:40 am, Viki <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Australia has a world class education system but it turns out > > > employees not employers. > > > > On Oct 30, 5:27 am, Trindaz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > The community needs frequent, consistent updates from startups > > > > around Sydney about how they're developing. I see the SB mailing > > > > list as a great place to ask questions, but I'd love some kind > > > > of section at siliconbeach.org that has something like a Sydney > > > > version of TechCrunch, or an aggregate of blogs from all our local startups. > > > > Anything that I can check often (I'd be on it daily) to read > > > > about how we are all progressing. I loved what you said one time > > > > Elias about startups in Silicon Valley talking about creating > > > > billion dollar companies. We don't have anywhere near enough of > > > > that kind of audacious ambition in our community currently (IMHO anyway). > > > > > And here's an idea just thinking outloud - You could register > > > > your startup at Siliconbeach.org and the more you participated > > > > (posting articles, news, replying to others, etc.) you'd get > > > > points (ala > > > > StackOverflow.com) - maybe this would spur on more engagement > > > > between Sydney Startups? > > > > > Plus basic content about what it means to run a startup and why > > > > it's a totally acceptable alternative to going straight into > > > > full time employment after uni would be helpful. Our unis are > > > > still full of students who simply aren't aware that successful > > > > startups exist and that it's really not so hard to get in there and try something. > > > > There's probably already some initiatives that are addressing > > > > this that I'm not already aware of. There was certainly nothing > > > > like it at MQ when I was finishing there in 2009. The number of > > > > times sentences in the COMP labs ended in '... so you can get a job' was sickening! > > > > > --Trindaz on Fedang #Sydney-needs-more-startup > > > > > On Oct 30, 9:26 am, Elias Bizannes <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > I managed to negotiate the purchase of the premium domain name > > > > > "siliconbeach.org". This adds to the existing > > > > > siliconbeachaustralia.org domain that kick-started this community. > > > > > > Why? Well when this opportunity appeared this week, I thought > > > > > it was important to protect the community brand, given how > > > > > we've grown since those first beers at the Shelbourne in May 2008. > > > > > > That said and like I asked 2+ years ago: we have a domain -- > > > > > now > > what? > > > > > What can we do with it that will build the community? > > > > > > Elias Bizanneshttp://eliasbizannes.com > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon > > Beach Australia mailing list. > > > Guidelines on discussion:http://tr.im/ujKF > > > No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce > > yourself:http://tr.im/ujMm > > > To post to this group, send email to > > [email protected] > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected]<silicon-beach-a > > silicon-beach-australia+ustrali a%[email protected]> > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Guidelines on discussion: http://tr.im/ujKF No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself: http://tr.im/ujMm To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Guidelines on discussion: http://tr.im/ujKF No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself: http://tr.im/ujMm To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Guidelines on discussion: http://tr.im/ujKF No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself: http://tr.im/ujMm To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en
