Young Australian tech entrepreneurs kick off a 10-day tour to soak up wisdom of Silicon Valley

THE next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates could be among a lucky group of young Australian entrepreneurs now on a 10-day tour of Silicon Valley.

Headquarters of Google in the Silicon Valley town of Mountain View, California.

TECH TRAVELS

THE next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates could be among a lucky group of young Australian tech entrepreneurs now on a 10-day tour to soak up all that wisdom in Silicon Valley.

Twenty of the nation’s best and brightest arrived in the Californian tech mecca this week as part of the Future Founders Mission, a joint initiative of Steve Baxter’s Startup Catalyst and Brisbane’s Technology One.

The young guns, aged 18 to 29, will surely be pinching themselves, hardly able to believe they are walking the hallowed halls of such luminaries as Facebook, Google, Twitter and Xero.

The fact that it’s an all-expenses paid trip worth about $10,000 a piece makes it that much sweeter.

Culled from a list of 521 applicants and 71 finalists, the group includes Stephanie Piper, who heads up Brisbane Hackerspace and also teaches 3D modelling and printing classes.

In something of an understatement, Startup Catalyst boss Aaron Birkby said this year’s trip was “designed to be mind blowing’’.

Illustration of Aaron Birkby by Brett Lethbridge.

“We expect winners to return to Australia and infect others with the ideas and inspiration they take on board,’’ he said.

Baxter, the Shark Tank star and savvy investor now serving as Queensland’s Chief Entrepreneur, founded Startup Catalyst, which is based out of his River City Labs in Fortitude Valley.

“This is something we need to be doing to assist the cultural transformation of our economy to one that is fast paced, startup aware, and global first in its thinking,” he said.

NEW VICTORIA

CAN you imagine southeast Queensland rebranded as New Victoria? Neither
can we.

But that didn’t stop Jeff Kennett placing his tongue firmly in his cheek and pitching the loopy idea yesterday.

The former Victorian premier dropped the clanger during his speech at the Commonwealth Games Going for Gold Legacy Symposium on the Gold Coast.

Not surprisingly, Kennett’s brain explosion didn’t go down too well with Mayor Tom Tate and other locals.

Tate couldn’t help himself, boasting that there are two kinds of Australians: those who live on the Gold Coast and those who wish they did.

Funnily enough, demographer Bernard Salt, who delivered the keynote address, had earlier come up with a few of his own stillborn ideas for rebranding our region.

Among his turkeys were Sun City, Sunurbia, Sunopia and, our personal favourite, Solarstan.

RAIL DELAY

ADANI has already taken central stage in the state election, with protesters against the company’s enormous planned coal mine making quite a high-profile nuisance of themselves.

City Beat spies now tell us that the giant Indian firm has decided to keep a low profile during the campaign, with the ceremonial start to work on its rail line unlikely to happen before election day.

It was supposed to kick off this month but heavy rain killed that off. The political contest has pushed the start date back by at least another seven weeks.

Regardless, real work on the mine is still going on and yesterday protester Darcy Poulton sat atop a monopole attached to equipment at the Belyando site. Officially, Adani maintains that work is continuing at all of their sites and nothing is being delayed.