By Cullen Pope
The podcast currently has 47 episodes available.
Rugare Gomo is a High Performance Coach, Investor, Lawyer and Philanthropist.
In the past 18 years of his life, the incredibly diverse range of
experiences Rugare has had, has led him to focus on what he loves to do: having entrepreneurs WIN at growing and scaling their business.
Rugare is the Founder of the Gomo Foundation an award-winning organisation which exists to empower young African women to enable them to take control of their own lives and reach their potential. Their first programs are in Zimbabwe where they provide scholarships for young women to attend Secondary School through to University.
Rugare’s commercial experience, leadership roles and community engagements in Australia, Asia Pacific, Africa and Europe have exposed him to work with startups, venture capitalists, CEO’s of big business, billionaire families, prime ministers and more.
In his spare time, you may find Rugare dancing to Beyoncé.
#rugaregomo (Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn)
#Iamlivingmylegacytoday #leadership #highperformancecoaching #socialenterprise #empoweringwomen
#gomofoundation (Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn) @rugaregomo (Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn) @gomofoundation (Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn)
www.gomofoundation.org.au
www.rugaregomo.com
To find out about upcoming events organised by Melbourne Silicon Beach - Australia's fastest growing startup community - go to:
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Melbourne-Silicon-Beach/
Melbourne Silicon Beach is proudly sponsored by:
Victory Offices
http://bitly.com/VictoryOffices_SD MYOB http://bitly.com/MYOB_SD Allied Legal http://bitly.com/AlliedLegal_SD Your host, Dan O'Grady can be found on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danogradysimpateco and at simpateco.com.au Intro & outro music by Dan O'Grady
Courtney Blackman explores the ways in which creativity and an adventurous spirit have shaped her life and career - fashion, journalism, real estate, marketing, networking, tech and of course renovating a heritage listed opera house!
Courtney is Head of PR & Marketing at YBF Ventures – Melbourne’s top startup hub for tech and innovation, Courtney looks after the company’s public-facing reputation and leads the internal and external communications teams. She is a member of YBF’s executive leadership team.
Since starting at YBF, Courtney has put the YBF brand in front of millions of eyes via traditional marketing and editorial placements. In her first year, YBF reached 21,530,721 people via traditional media and 4,705,315 via social media. She designed, developed and currently oversees content production for three direct-email products and has increased direct communication by 1188%. Courtney and her team hosted over 400 events in 2018, most open to the wider tech ecosystem.
Courtney manages the ongoing content strategy for YBF’s own news page, a YBF Medium account and YBF’s own YouTube channel and multiple social media platforms. Under her leadership the YBF marketing team has grown social media followers by over 8,000%, and in April of 2019 the company was awarded ‘Best Instagame’ by the Coworky Awards out of the States. YBF was also shortlisted for the 2019 Australian Small Business Champion Awards.
Courtney has been active in pushing gender equality and produced Australia's first fintech awards celebrating women and cultural minorities in 2018 – the Lift Off Awards. The awards were supported by the Victorian Government, Lander & Rogers, Xero, Visa, ConsenSys, Vinomofo, Foreigner Brewing Co. and the British Consulate-General Melbourne.
Prior to moving to Melbourne, Courtney was a London-based entrepreneur working in fashion and music. She founded and grew Forward PR, a media firm that became one of the most respected agencies in London working across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Courtney’s team secured coverage in tens of thousands of outlets (print, digital, television and radio) including Vogue, ELLE, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, BBC – resulting in millions of pounds worth of equivalent advertising. Her team created and managed hundreds of events (catwalk shows in London and Paris, product and album launches, etc.); successfully aligned celebrities and influencers and negotiated numerous unique collaborations. Courtney was a board member of the Ethical Fashion Forum; a judge for the WGSN Global Fashion Awards, Scottish Fashion Awards and the Fashion Monitor Journalism Awards; a commentator for NBC's Today Show and a presenter for Fashion One Television. She was a regular guest lecturer at universities and even helped develop the PR program at Southampton Solent University.
Courtney also founded, grew and ultimately sold London’s premier professional fashion networking club. As MD and Chairperson, she secured top names as event speakers – British Vogue Editor, Edward Enninful; male model, David Gandy; heiress and accessories guru, Lulu Guinness; and British GQ Editor, Dylan Jones; forged lasting partnerships with Swarovski, Condé Nast, Pulse Films and the V&A Museum and secured and maintained relationships with sponsors. She served as Producer for The Industry TV and Editor-in-Chief of its digital magazine.
Personal interests include the arts. Outside of YBF Ventures, Courtney is the editor of a London-based men’s lifestyle magazine called Candid Magazine where she oversees a team of more than 12 global editors and contributors. The magazine features original content in the fields of arts, fashion, film, music and celebrity interviews.
Courtney and her partner also spent thirteen years historically restoring and operating an opera house in the UNESCO World Heritage town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and owned and operated a contemporary art gallery in the town. In the first quarter of 2019, the Lunenburg Opera House was sold to a society, which will carry on their original vision of being a beacon of the arts for Nova Scotia’s South Shore.
linkedin.com/in/courtneyblackman
www.ybfventures.com
www.candidmagazine.com
www.lunenburgoperahouse.com https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/lunenburg-opera-house-finds-new-owners-1.5112765
To find out about upcoming events organised by Melbourne Silicon Beach - Australia's fastest growing startup community - go to:
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Melbourne-Silicon-Beach/
Melbourne Silicon Beach is proudly sponsored by:
Victory Offices
http://bitly.com/VictoryOffices_SD MYOB http://bitly.com/MYOB_SD Allied Legal http://bitly.com/AlliedLegal_SD Your host, Dan O'Grady can be found on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danogradysimpateco and at simpateco.com.au Intro & outro music by Dan O'Grady
Marshall Hughes, founder of Passel shares his tale of a self-confessed "space nut" growing up in a job oriented community, falling into a career in logistics and becoming an entrepreneur due to a software glitch. We also talk about energy versus time management, parallel universes and how Australian startups tend to look the world in a unique way.
Marshall has over 25 years experience in logistics, and until 2016 was Chief Operating Officer of Myfreight; a freight management, brokerage and software company based in Ringwood.
In 2016 Marshall founded Passel - a service for retailers where shoppers deliver on their way home to online shoppers.
Passel launched in Melbourne in April 2018 and has since expanded to stores in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Mornington.
Launch in Ireland and Northern is planned for late 2019 after Passel won a worldwide competition and funding from the cities of Dublin and Belfast.
When not working on Passel, Marshall is a Productivity coach and tries to spend some time with his wife Jackie, and 5 children ranging from 18 months to 19 years.
www.passeldelivery.com
To find out about upcoming events organised by Melbourne Silicon Beach - Australia's fastest growing startup community - go to:
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Melbourne-Silicon-Beach/
Melbourne Silicon Beach is proudly sponsored by:
Victory Offices
http://bitly.com/VictoryOffices_SD MYOB http://bitly.com/MYOB_SD Allied Legal http://bitly.com/AlliedLegal_SD Your host, Dan O'Grady can be found on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danogradysimpateco and at simpateco.com.au Intro & outro music by Dan O'Grady
The story behind EPIC Experiences:
Having just turned 30, Meray had it all... successful job, her own apartment and just the right number of friends to hit the town with or visit that new show.
Then what felt like overnight, everything changed. Friends got married, babies arrived and everything had to be pre-booked months in advance. Unique dining experiences, outdoor activities, how to classes all the things this city had to offer were suddenly out of reach... Meray had no one to go with.
Spotting a gap in the market, Meray launched Epic Catch.
"Shared experiences" was the business model and EPIC Experiences the conduit; a seamless end-to-end booking platform, that finds you someone to go with. Simply swipe for an event, swipe for a like-minded individual, confirm the booking, start chatting, share an amazing experience. EPIC Experiences takes care of it all for you.
Awards EPIC Experiences has won:
March 2017 Vic Startup Launch pitch competition
Academy xi 90 second pitch, the uber of x
Finalist in the Slingshot NRMA accelerator program
www.epicexperiences.co
https://www.linkedin.com/in/meray/
To find out about upcoming events organised by Melbourne Silicon Beach - Australia's fastest growing startup community - go to:
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Melbourne-Silicon-Beach/
Melbourne Silicon Beach is proudly sponsored by:
Victory Offices
http://bitly.com/VictoryOffices_SD MYOB http://bitly.com/MYOB_SD Allied Legal http://bitly.com/AlliedLegal_SD Your host, Dan O'Grady can be found on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danogradysimpateco and at simpateco.com.au Intro & outro music by Dan O'Grady
Paul Baron moved away from corporate life to become an adviser, investor, and advocate for startups and innovation. His knack for putting out fires is both figurative and literal, he is an expert problem-solver and volunteer firefighter in his spare time.
"I’ve enjoyed a career that spans consulting, government and large corporates but have recently returned to my startup roots this time as an investor. I also work as a consultant and as adviser mostly in the tourism, digital and government areas.
My son thinks I’m like Kenny (from the rental toilet film rather than South Park) perhaps because I love meeting people from all walks of life and chatting to them about their lives and their passions."
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulcbaron/
To find out about upcoming events organised by Melbourne Silicon Beach - Australia's fastest growing startup community - go to:
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Melbourne-Silicon-Beach/
Melbourne Silicon Beach is proudly sponsored by:
Victory Offices
http://bitly.com/VictoryOffices_SD MYOB http://bitly.com/MYOB_SD Allied Legal http://bitly.com/AlliedLegal_SD Your host, Dan O'Grady can be found on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danogradysimpateco and at simpateco.com.au Intro & outro music by Dan O'Grady
Lily is a 30-year old climate change activist from Canberra. She is the CEO and founder of The Neighbourhood Effect. The Neighbourhood Effect is a mobile app and website that uses behavioural science to make it easy, social and rewarding for Australians to connect to eco-friendly products, services and community initiatives in their neighbourhood, and to adopt green habits that reduce their carbon footprints.
Local councils, green property managers and businesses white-label The Neighbourhood Effect's software to help their residents adopt sustainable behaviours, build community and reduce waste and energy costs. Through our app and website, users unlock recommended products and activities (across energy, transport, food, waste, neighbourhood initiatives and low-carbon consumer products) tailored to suit their lifestyle, household and location.
The Neighbourhood Effect has been running for 18 months and in that time, it has launched a free website and mobile app for ACT residents with the support of the government there, launched a national pilot with Sydney City Council and CitySwitch called the Better Buildings Cup, a sustainable behaviour change program for commercial office buildings and, raised $30,000 through a 4-week crowd-funding campaign with ING's Dreamstarter program.
Lily was formerly GetUp’s Market Impact Director, where she ran green consumer campaigns, helping 4000 Australians purchase GreenPower and 13,000 people switch to a carbon neutral electricity retailer. These campaigns had an impact equivalent to taking 50,000 cars off the road for a year and adding 2MW of additional renewable power to the grid.
She has also worked as a consultant to the Australian environmental movement and was previously an analyst in an in-house management consulting unit in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Lily has a background in law and social science and is completing a Masters in Energy Change (climate change mitigation, environmental sustainability and renewable energy technology engineering) at the Australian National University.
Lily is a Foundation for Young Australians 2017 Young Social Pioneer, a SheStarts alumnus (an accelerator program for female founders of tech startups with venture technology firm BlueChilli), the winner of the 2017 Allens Social Innovation Competition, and a national finalist in the Climate Launchpad competition for innovative green businesses.
www.theneighbourhoodeffect.com.au
[email protected]
To find out about upcoming events organised by Melbourne Silicon Beach - Australia's fastest growing startup community - go to:
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Melbourne-Silicon-Beach/
Melbourne Silicon Beach is proudly sponsored by:
Victory Offices
http://bitly.com/VictoryOffices_SD MYOB http://bitly.com/MYOB_SD Allied Legal http://bitly.com/AlliedLegal_SD Your host, Dan O'Grady can be found on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danogradysimpateco and at simpateco.com.au Intro & outro music by Dan O'Grady
Garry is a mainstay within Melbourne's tech, innovation and startup environment having led partnerships and collaborations with local, national and global brands throughout his work in emerging technology, education, business and creative sectors.
Currently, Garry works as the Creative Producer of Innovation with the University of Melbourne, tasked with delivering innovative activation and engagement opportunities for the university, for the Melbourne Innovation Districts (a partnership between University of Melbourne, RMIT and City of Melbourne) and for Science Gallery Melbourne- one of eight nodes in the global Science Gallery network aimed at the convergence of art, science and technology.
As an advocate for non-traditional career pathways, Garry has recently been involved in establishing and growing various meetups and communities throughout Australia, such as FuckUp Nights, Melbourne Tech and more, with a continued presence as an MC and moderator of events, classes and workshops plus multiple side-projects on the go.
https://www.instagram.com/gwilliamsalts/
https://twitter.com/gwilliamsalts?lang=en
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrycwilliams/
https://www.meetup.com/FuckUp-Nights-Melbourne/
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To find out about upcoming events organised by Melbourne Silicon Beach - Australia's fastest growing startup community - go to:
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Melbourne-Silicon-Beach/
Melbourne Silicon Beach is proudly sponsored by:
Victory Offices
http://bitly.com/VictoryOffices_SD MYOB http://bitly.com/MYOB_SD Allied Legal http://bitly.com/AlliedLegal_SD Your host, Dan O'Grady can be found on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danogradysimpateco and at simpateco.com.au Intro & outro music by Dan O'GradyKiki Makrogiannis, founder of KIKI Enterprises – MIC DROP MEDIA & LinkedIn superstar shares her experiences in growing her marketing & branding business while raising a family - building on her father's legacy, the quest for sleep, learning from mistakes and avoiding burnout.
Kiki on Kiki:
I’m very passionate about the trade, building and construction industries. I grew up within the trade industry, my father was a builder and seen first hand the commitment and sacrifices.
My passion is to help them with branding, marketing and job leads. And I really love helping out the ‘little guy!’ This is why I do what I do, this is my love and this my passion!
My aim is to help construction, building and trade businesses across Australia with personalised branding, digital and marketing solutions!
I’ve always had a strong passion about helping people in these industries and I truly appreciate the opportunity to work closely with many amazing clients each day.
One of my favourite parts of my job is going out on construction sites and seeing my clients work first hand. I always get a stronger appreciation of what they do and a deeper understanding of their needs.
My goal is to become the number one provider of marketing, branding and digital solutions to trade, building and construction industries across Australia.
I would also love to run a non for profit foundation where Australian trades can get better access to services such as medical, health, finance and insurance etc.
For those who don’t know me, I’m a free-spirited individual, I love thinking ‘outside the box’ and I always enjoy having fun with content creation!
Originality is something that’s important to me when creating great content and this will always resonate with your online community.
Being different isn’t a bad thing, use it to your advantage! Being raw, unique and just being you, is what separates you from everyone else and makes you stand out from the crowd.
Be strong, be brave and stay true to you, because you will be unstoppable! Never give up and keep striving to become the best version of yourself!
Much love
www.kikienterprises.com.au
[email protected]
linkedin.com/in/kiki-makrogiannis
@_the_real_kiki_
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To find out about upcoming events organised by Melbourne Silicon Beach - Australia's fastest growing startup community - go to:
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Melbourne-Silicon-Beach/
Melbourne Silicon Beach is proudly sponsored by:
Victory Offices
http://bitly.com/VictoryOffices_SD MYOB http://bitly.com/MYOB_SD Allied Legal http://bitly.com/AlliedLegal_SD Your host, Dan O'Grady can be found on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danogradysimpateco and at simpateco.com.au Intro & outro music by Dan O'Grady"I quit corporate life because I was getting really good at things that didn't make my pulse race, and was being paid so well that it was getting harder to leave every year...and my love for tech kept tugging at me."
Zubin according to Zubin.
About me:
(i) schooled in India, started practice there in the courts, before I moved to aviation leasing and corporate law.
ii) moved to Australia in 2007, as was placed here by an international law firm
iii) spent most of 2014 in Jakarta setting up a joint venture for my employers
iv) career change and did MBA in 2015 while working full time in channel strategy and new tech business dev
v) tried to launch two products of my own in that time, hiring out to devs etc. first one never got deployed, second one is an android app that I did not market and is still languishing in the Android Play Store, but is actually a cool idea
vi) quit corporate life because I was getting really good at things that didn't make my pulse race, and was being paid so well that it was getting harder to leave every year...and my love for tech kept tugging at me. So I jumped off the cliff and quit ...abruptly in 2017. hired a dev team and built www.whooshka.me for iOS, Android and the web.
vii) launched and did reasonably well, learned a LOT but no clear monetisation model
viii) this journey was also picked up by the FreeCodeCamp podcast, and by for TV on ThatStartupShow
viii) running out of $$ and savings so started to teach myself to code (second time !!)
xi) Currently work part-time as a coder at an early stage startup here in Melbourne.
x) have produced a Udemy course that helps anyone (especially people with established careers) put together a viable plan to learn to code. People can sign up here and if they mention "Silicon Beach Melbourne" or "Strange Destinations" I would be happy to give them the course at a substantial discount.
I blog occasionally - and recently contributed to the FreeCodeCamp blog (largest blog on medium), including on the mindset it takes to learn to code (esp when you're no longer a kid). Twitter: @ZubinPratap - is best to contact me.
linkedin.com/in/zubinpratap
To find out about upcoming events organised by Melbourne Silicon Beach - Australia's fastest growing startup community - go to:
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Melbourne-Silicon-Beach/
Melbourne Silicon Beach is proudly sponsored by:
Victory Offices
http://bitly.com/VictoryOffices_SD MYOB http://bitly.com/MYOB_SD Allied Legal http://bitly.com/AlliedLegal_SD Your host, Dan O'Grady can be found on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danogradysimpateco and at simpateco.com.au Intro & outro music by Dan O'GradyMax Middleweek is the founder of Zero Impact. Zero Impact recycles waste coffee grounds into clean energy, tackling the waste from six billion cups of coffee Aussies consume each year and a carbon footprint of more than 0.5 million tonnes of CO2.
A passionate advocate for climate change, Max was a former Policy Advisor to the Mayor of London, Transport for London and State Government in Victoria in sustainable transport.
Max graduated from University College London in 2013 with a Bachelors and Masters in Chemistry and the University of Westminster in 2016 with a PGCert in Transport Planning and Management.
www.zeroimpact.co
linkedin.com/in/max-middleweek
To find out about upcoming events organised by Melbourne Silicon Beach - Australia's fastest growing startup community - go to:
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Melbourne-Silicon-Beach/
Melbourne Silicon Beach is proudly sponsored by:
Victory Offices
http://bitly.com/VictoryOffices_SD MYOB http://bitly.com/MYOB_SD Allied Legal http://bitly.com/AlliedLegal_SD Your host, Dan O'Grady can be found on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danogradysimpateco and at simpateco.com.au Intro & outro music by Dan O'GradyThe podcast currently has 47 episodes available.