{"id":32091,"date":"2023-10-20T14:27:02","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/tech-hackathon-to-help-refugees-settle-in-australia-is-coming-to-melbourne-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:27:02","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:27:02","slug":"tech-hackathon-to-help-refugees-settle-in-australia-is-coming-to-melbourne-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/tech-hackathon-to-help-refugees-settle-in-australia-is-coming-to-melbourne-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech hackathon to help refugees settle in Australia is coming to Melbourne – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Melbourne tech and startup sectors will be uniting in April to come up with innovative new ways to help refugees settle in the community.<\/p>\n

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The Techfugees hackathon follows a similar event in Sydney in November last year<\/a> that saw 150 founders, entrepreneurs, developers and investors team up with NGOs and refugees to formulate new ideas and startups.<\/p>\n

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Angel investor and former refugee Shelli Trung<\/a> is organising the event in conjunction with the Sydney team, and says Melbourne is the ideal city to hold it.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re very, very pro-diversity here,\u201d Trung tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe obviously have one of the most successful implementations and settlements of refugees and migrants in Australia and we\u2019re known for being one of the most welcoming cities in the world.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s obviously the right place to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ideas from the Sydney event included an app to help refugees manages goals and objectives, translation tools and a platform to curate local businesses and services.<\/p>\n

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While the enthusiasm from the local tech community has been instant, Trung says the not-for-profits are yet to get on board.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPretty much every tech organisations has said yes and that\u2019s fantastic,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve had the easiest time when it comes to the tech community but unfortunately the NGOs have been a bit slow and that\u2019s been frustrating for us. We really want them to be involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Sydney Techfugees event was sponsored by Settlement Services International and STARTTS and Trung says it\u2019s crucial that refugees are actually brought into the process in Melbourne and participate in the hackathon.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve gone to a lot of events aiming to help refugees where refugees are not in attendance \u2013 but in Sydney they were front and centre and a part of hacking the solution,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat was paramount to how successful it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

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While the NGOs may have been slow on the uptake, a number of bigger organisations will be sponsoring the event, including the Telstra Foundation, AWS and Dropbox.<\/p>\n

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Trung says it\u2019s important for refugees to see that the community cares and is trying to help them settle in Australia.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe tech community is fantastic at getting behind a social cause,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf we wait for government to do something they\u2019ll still be debating and the tech community would\u2019ve already developed a solution.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe tech community just gets it done. It\u2019s an amazing way to show refugees and migrants that you don\u2019t have to wait for the government to actually give you the services \u2013 you can learn skills online for free.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI want to introduce them to the community, for them to come in and see how progressive, inclusive and diverse the tech community is.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Melbourne Techfugees event will be taking place from April 15th<\/sup> \u2013 17th<\/sup> at LaunchPad in Richmond. You can register here.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Follow StartupSmart on\u00a0Facebook<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0SoundCloud<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Melbourne tech and startup sectors will be uniting in April to come up with innovative new ways to help<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32091"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}