QUT hosts global start-up bootcamp

A global bootcamp will be held in Brisbane for start-up companies as part of the state government’s Advance Queensland initiative.

The MIT Bootcamp, which will be held at QUT in February 2018, is designed to attract more start-up companies to Queensland.

“The bootcamp will help nurture our next generation of entrepreneurs and aligns with this government’s $420 million Advance Queensland initiative to collaborate and turn ideas into action,” said Innovation Minister Leeanne Enoch.

The bootcamp will condense curriculum taught in several courses at MIT into an intensive, one-week learning experience.

The week includes lectures by senior MIT lecturers, focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship. The MIT Bootcamp will bring innovators from across the globe to focus on technology-enabled innovation in Queensland’s key sectors including agriculture, mining and environmental management.

QUT Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Commercialisation) Professor Arun Sharma said the bootcamp’s return to Brisbane followed the highly successful MIT Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp in March, which was attended by 120 participants from 35 countries.

“Two Brisbane women were in the two top teams to come up with breakthrough ideas during the March event, where participants were required to devise solutions to a major challenge, find customers, start a company and then present their work to an international panel of venture capitalists from Brisbane, San Francisco and Boston,” Sharma said.

MIT is ranked as the number one university in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2016–2017. According to the 2014 report Entrepreneurship and Innovation at MIT, MIT alumni have launched more than 30,000 active companies, creating 4.6 million jobs and generating US$1.9 trillion in annual revenue. The cumulative result is the equivalent of the 10th largest economy in the world.

QUT will offer three scholarships to Queenslanders to attend the bootcamp, including one specifically for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.

Individuals or teams have until 1 November 2017 to apply for the MIT Innovation and Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, with successful participants to be announced in December.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/fotomek

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