The SproutCast

If you've tried to identify a problem before, you might've found that this process is actually really hard - especially if people tend to tell you what you want to hear rather than the real truth. In this episode, we chat to Leanne Wei Yi Ng, Customer Experience Design Lead at Sydney Water and learn about how she does problem discovery professionally. Leanne shares her best techniques to improve market research and draws on what she does at Sydney Water, a service that all Sydney-siders use. After all, in order to build great solutions, you first need to understand the REAL problem. We also chat about what you can do to actually solve the problem well once you identify it. Enjoy the episode!

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In this episode, Nicole shares her journey, from working in Venture Capital, to Management Consulting at McKinsey and founding Kin Fertility. We chat about her story, the problems she identified in reproductive health and why she decided to do something about it. We hear about Nicole's founder journey in the Healthcare space with its higher barriers to entry and the strategy behind Kin's offerings. We also discuss the impacts of COVID in propelling telehealth and the role of competition in driving innovation. Nicole also shares her biggest challenges and proudest moments throughout all of this. 

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Ever wondered what makes a good product or experience, or what you do at the C-suite level in tech? We debunk this with Jürgen Spangl, Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Atlassian. In this episode, Jürgen provides his perspectives on what makes a good product or service, and explains why some are designed better than others. We also chat about what he does as the CXO of a tech company and gain his insights into leadership - including the importance of saying no when things aren't good enough. Jürgen provides us with his best career advice for young people and answers some of your questions including how to exceed in the tech space without a technical background.

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In part 2, we chat to Victoria Edghill, founder and CEO at Relievables and Citizen of the Planet about the unsustainable nature of consumption. We chat about the problem with fast fashion and the need to transition from a linear to circular economy. We also talk about whether fashion can ever be considered sustainable, what you can do as a consumer and answer your questions about sustainability. 

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Today we're talking about sustainability and all things responsible business! In part 1, we chat to Victoria Edghill, founder and CEO at Relievables and Citizen of the Planet about the social and environmental impact of businesses. We understand what it means to be a responsible business and why it's so hard for businesses to change despite the importance of sustainable and ethical practices. We also break down what you can do as a consumer to encourage businesses to do better, spotting greenwashing and the harmfulness of cancel culture when businesses make mistakes.

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Earlywork is the home of tech and startup careers for young people in Australia. In this episode we chat to the co-founding team from Earlywork: Daniel Brockwell, Marina Wu and Jonathan Herman about how Earlywork started, how it evolved and the key challenges along the way. We also hear about their experiences of working on Earlywork as a side hustle, key points to building a successful community and how to reach critical mass.

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In this episode we chat to Jenny Chu, head of product at Eucalyptus, a healthcare technology company, about all things product management. We ask Jenny about the skills that good PMs have and the difference between the PM levels from intern to head of product. We also talk about how learnings from PM such as leading and influencing without authority can be applied to other contexts, and whether or not a young intern/graduate should even attempt to lead and influence.

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Moving to the Silicon Valley to pursue startups seems like 'The Dream' for many, but what is it actually like? In this episode we chat to Alan Shen, a USYD graduate about his experience moving from Sydney to Silicon Valley where he's working at an early stage startup called Pave. We learn about Alan's decision making process around where to work and how to maximise effectiveness when outreaching. Alan also talks to us about his thinking around how he prioritises learning, the importance of finding a good manager/business to work for and focusing on his health. 

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We've made 10 episodes!!! In this bonus episode we make some very exciting announcements for The SproutCast, chat about what we've been doing in lockdown and reflect on our key learnings from the past episodes. Thank you all for your support over the last two months, we REALLY appreciate it and couldn't have done it without you. 

The SproutCast will be launching a community very soon where we can talk to you all. We aim to co-create our episodes with you, include more of your questions for our guests and create a space to chat about growth and impact. After all, learning is best achieved when you talk about it with others. SPROUT OUT x

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In this episode, we chat to Emily about her experiences co-founding Compass IoT and the impactful work she's doing in using connected vehicle data to improve road safety in order to prevent death and injury. We also learn about the complex nature of city planning and Emily's experiences on being a young woman in tech. She also shares her views on the importance of diversity and imposter syndrome - two widely discussed issues in the workforce.

Timestamps for your convenience:

0:00 - saving lives on the road with data

23:55 - being a young woman in tech and diversity