TWISTA - This Week in Startups Australia

TWISTA Co-hosts Claire Connelly and Mark Pesce in conversation with Wyatt Roy, the former Parliamentarian and Assistant Minister for Innovation, freshly back from his travels overseas, and deep into an artificial intelligence startup. Together we take a post-mortem look at the the government’s “Ideas Boom” as we ask Wyatt ‘what happened’? The inside scoop from the ultimate source, on this episode of This Week in Startups Australia.

TWISTA Co-host Claire Connelly in conversation with Paul Shetler, the former chief of the Digital Transformation Office (now the Digital Transformation Agency). With more than 20 years experience, Shetler has worked in digital transformation for both the UK government’s Cabinet Office and the UK's Ministry of Justice, as well as in the US private sector for companies including Oracle and Microsoft. He recently had some frank words for Turnbull administration - and the public service more broadly - and its role in the quote ‘predictable’ raft of recent IT failures across the ATO, ABS and Centrelink, to name a few.

TWISTA opens series 5 with Monica Wulff, CEO of Startup Muster, who goes through all the key points of the recently released 2016 survey of Australia's startup ecosystem. Then TWISTA speaks to Elanation co-founder Katherine Maree Pace and Aimee Atkins about building a lifestyle tech company that starts with a 'child-centred' design process.

When the Next Payment Platform rolls out in October, Australia will be a world leader with an open platform for payments - open to banks and any other company that wants to provide a payments product or service. This could make Australia the best environment to nurture a payments startup - if we take advantage of the opportunity. TWISTA talks to NPP Australia CEO Adrian Lovney and SWIFT Oceania head Bill Doran about the potential and reality of this once-in-a-generation transition

How do we get more and better women entrepreneurs in Australia's startup ecosystem? SheStarts Managing Director Nicole Hazell tells TWISTA to start by recruiting the best, putting them through a bootcamp, then give them the resources they need to succeed. Then TWISTA closes out Series 4 in conversation with ecosystem mentor Nicole Williamson and journalist Claire Connelly - and drops two bombshell surprises!

TWISTA series sponsors Braintree Payments gave TWISTA a brief to do a series of special episodes focusing on payments - perhaps the most-rapidly-changing area of fintech. We start our second payments special with an overview of the payments landscape provided by banking and payments maven Andrew Davis. Then we sit down with Kaushik Sen and Paul Bennetts, co-founders of Spaceship, a superfund for millennials that's focused on tech investments.

Ten years ago, Cyan Ta'eed decided that photographers needed a better connection to the marketplace, co-founding Envato, growing it into a monster force in creative collaboration, and quietly leading a business that's now worth nearly half a billion dollars. Rebecca Wilson decided that the media industries had overlooked a goldmine in the over 60s, and founded Starts At 60 to capitalise on the newly empowered market of seniors - cashed up and ready engage. Both Cyan and Rebecca have charted their own direction, against the tide - and both are well on the way to startup success.

We've had a federal election, the announcement of some huge VC funds, yet still find ourselves mired in sexism in the tech industry. Fortunately our expert panel of SCALE Investors Managing Director Laura Mckenzie and award-winning journalist Claire Connelly cuts through the noise to deliver some excellent analysis about the latest developments in Australia's startup ecosystem.

In this episode two founders from the Dolphin Tank Accelerator join TWISTA to discuss their SaSS businesses. First, Tania Walter, co-founder of Obzervr, tells TWISTA how field service can be automated into great savings for connected businesses. Then BookingBoss co-founder Renee Welsh details how ticketing and payments - big pain points for any tourist attraction - form the foundation of what may grow into a multi-billion-dollar business. One of these startups could well be Australia's next unicorn - and they're both on this episode of TWISTA.

SBE Australia has spent half a decade building a 'sisterhood' of amazing startup entrepreneurs helping each other build global scale businesses. Chair Topaz Conway talks to TWISTA about taking an entrepreneur through a process designed to broaden the mind and activate the potential of Australia's top female founders. Then Maxine Sherrin, Program Director for Sydney's Spark Festival, joins TWISTA to talk about how Spark will help Sydney's startup community share its passions with the broader community - and how that community is already responding. Two amazing guests with great insights on making better startups.