{"id":42616,"date":"2023-10-20T15:22:30","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/conference-organisers-back-melbourne-as-innovation-epicentre-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:22:30","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:22:30","slug":"conference-organisers-back-melbourne-as-innovation-epicentre-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/conference-organisers-back-melbourne-as-innovation-epicentre-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Conference organisers back Melbourne as innovation \u201cepicentre\u201d – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Organisers behind next year\u2019s above all human<\/i> conference hope bringing the event back to Melbourne will keep fuelling the city\u2019s red-hot startup sector.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Conference co-founder Bronwen Clune describes Melbourne as the \u201cepicentre\u201d of Australia\u2019s innovation scene, saying momentum has shifted away from Sydney in the last five or six years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSlack, Etsy, Eventbrite, Stripe are all coming to Australia and basing themselves in Melbourne,\u201d Clune told StartupSmart<\/i>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cFurthermore, some of the most exciting emerging startups like CareMonkey and CultureAmp were founded in Melbourne.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The conference will host an enviable program of local and international speakers including Xero co-founder Rod Drury and Slack\u2019s director of customer experience Ali Rayl.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Clune says the startup community has always been well-connected online, but face-to-face networking opportunities like above all human<\/i> could help Australia\u2019s next big tech export \u201ctake off\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cFor a long time we\u2019ve been talking about Australia\u2019s next Atlassian and I think we\u2019ve seen more than one well and truly on their way to making their mark,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The startup crowd is a diverse one, so Clune and co-founder Susan Wu make a concerted effort to have their list of speakers reflect that diversity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last year they achieved a 50-50 balance between the male and female speakers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSusan and I want to certainly drive the message home to all other tech conferences that are running in Australia that they have no excuse, that they have great responsibility,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The last above all human<\/i> conference sold out and Clune expects the same will occur this time as the startup community continues to grow in number and influence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great time to be in tech anywhere in the world and there\u2019s no reason why Australia can\u2019t play more of a frontrunner role on a global scale,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much happening, let\u2019s set things on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do you know more on this story or have a tip of your own? Raising capital or launching a startup? Let us know. Follow StartupSmart on<\/i> Facebook<\/i>,<\/i> Twitter<\/i>, and<\/i> LinkedIn<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Organisers behind next year\u2019s above all human conference hope bringing the event back to Melbourne will keep fuelling the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42616"}],"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=42616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}