On 14th May this year, our Premier (also Minister for Science) Colin Barnett announced a $20 million package designed to boost the State’s fast-growing innovation sector in the 2016-17 State Budget. One of the initiatives is due this month, Techtober.
I’ll wait while you read the press release…
So, let’s see how we have gone, shall we?
Innovation Summit
This happened on 28th July, a little over two months after the announcement. You can read two articles we published about it,
Western Australian Innovation Summit: A Missed Opportunity
The participants were told that we would be given details about how the State’s Innovation Strategy was heading later, but so far, I haven’t heard anything further.
The portal will be a one-stop shop to connect innovators, incubators, mentors and investors.
Have you seen anything?
More to the point, could they have included existing publishers of the above information in this project?
Start IT Up WA Challenge
We wrote about this in Start It Up for Your Share of $100k. This one was interesting; there really wasn’t a lot to go on, besides the page seen here.
When I checked at 6pm on 4th October, it said Applications closed 4pm 24 August 2016. The Shortlist will be announced 23 September 2016. There were no announcements anywhere I could find on the GCIO website.
Innovation events will include Techtober, a month that showcases digital technology and features masterclasses with national and international experts.
Announcements so far, now that we are in October (Which I assume was the motivation behind calling it Techtober)?
None.
I’m guessing this isn’t going ahead this year?
The WA Innovator of the Year awards will be revamped to focus on entrepreneurial support for award winners.
The jury is still out on this one. The wording would suggest this entrepreneurial support will happen after the awards, which are slated for 2 November, according to the website.
Will anything actually happen before the election?
So, in summary, the next state election is to be held on 11th March 2017 is looming, and the conversations in the ecosystem is that nothing is moving very fast with this state innovation package.
After 4 months and 20 days since the announcement of the $20 million package, not a lot has been shown. We are nearly half way to election (5 months and 7 days to go), so what should we be expecting before the state government is up for election? Is it too much to expect them to move faster?