October 22, 2014

Region’s brightest entrepreneurs gear up for iAccelerate Pitch and Demo Day

The Illawarra’s brightest business prospects will showcase their work on Wednesday 29 October. 

Business entrepreneurs developing ideas ranging from technology to monitor the effectiveness of social media marketing to new generation materials and a F1 motorsport game for mobile phones will be showcasing their work at iAccelerate’s Pitch and Demo Day on 29 October.

The event at UOW's Innovation Campus is open to the public and organisers hope the region’s business community will attend to meet the region’s brightest entrepreneurs and hear about the business ideas that they hope will help transform the region’s business environment.

iAccelerate is the University’s business incubator and accelerator. Based at the Innovation Campus, it provides start-up companies with premises and professional services support, a robust educational program, formalised business acceleration monitoring and mentoring in finance and accounting, marketing and media, intellectual property and legal issues and human resources.

iAccelerate Pitch & Demo Day starts at 12 noon on 29 October at the Ocean Room in iC Central at the Innovation Campus.

iAccelerate CEO Elizabeth Eastland (pictured above) said she hoped Illawarra business people and members of the public would support the event, which showed the potential for future innovation-based business development in the region.

“We have many talented people working on some great ideas,” Ms Eastland. “We are really excited to be giving them this opportunity to showcase their work to the community and demonstrate their potential to really contribute to this region’s economic transformation.”

iAccelerate Pitch is a platform for entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas to potential investors. Seven finalists have been chosen after a series of workshops before a judging panel to determine which ideas were ready for market assessment.

The seven finalists are:

·  Game developer BeerMogul Games, which has developed a mobile game based on Formula One car racing;

·  Technology company Joindup, which has developed a platform to convert disparate data sources into a single, easy to use application;

·  Social media analytics platform Social Status, which enables marketers to assess the effectiveness of their social media marketing efforts;

·  Steele Environmental Solutions, which is using unique powder technology to develop materials for high-performance applications;

·  The Early Years Digital Sketch Book, which provides a digital format that allows children to easily share their creativity;

·  The Safety Compass, an occupational health and safety risk management app;

·  Timeline Information Systems, which is a data capture method for the insurance industry.

Demo Day is a business expo which gives local startups and companies the opportunity to demonstrate their business and products to investors, industry experts and business leaders.

The event has been divided into afternoon (12-3pm) and evening (6-7.30pm) sessions.

Register: www.iaccelerate.com.au. 

Media contact: Genevieve Gatt, iAccelerate, +61409 116 896 or gatt@uow.edu.au.