Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 21 and 23 August the professional learning institute of the University of the Sunshine Coast hosted a start-up weekend for 36 year 10 to year 12 students. The remarkable thing was that one of the judges there was Sally-Ann Williams, from Google, who is known to many in this place. She has attended these start-up weekends, which are a collaboration of ideas. Teams get together on a Friday, pitch an idea, form a group and then work hard over the weekend at home and at the uni to pitch an idea to venture capitalists that could actually turn into a Google. Sally-Ann said that of all of the pitches she has seen all around Australia, both from adults and from children, this was the highest quality she had seen. There were at least three pitches on the day that could have been turned immediately into businesses.

The winner on the day was headed up by a young man called Josiah Bettenay, a year 10 student at Mountain Creek State High School. He was joined by his classmates Mitch Keefe, Jayden Wilson, Georgia Walker-Healy and Emma Conway. Their idea was to develop an app to take all the paper out of being a learner driver—and wouldn't every parent like that idea! It came up because of a lived experience with his sister, who had to fill out all this paperwork. So congratulations to the team and to Graeme Breen, who is leading the way with the digital economy on the Sunshine Coast. Thank you to the University of the Sunshine Coast, and well done to all of those children for seeing the future.