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January 2024

Gear up in 2024: What’s ON the radar

Three people sit amongst a crowd. The woman in the middle is wearing a black shirt and is laughing with her hand up to her face, her smile is infectious. The on the right is wearing a blue top and is looking at the camera with a big grin and the man to her left is looking over at them both smiling. It looks as though the presentation they are watching has made them all laugh.
The ON community together for ON Core

As we launch into 2024, we've been reflecting on the incredible strides made by our deep tech and innovation community in the last 12 months. The work you do reshapes how we interact with the world and moves mountains along the way.

To say we’re proud of this community is an understatement.

In 2023:

  • 124 teams successfully completed ON Prime, culminating in 15 dynamic showcase events across Australia.
  • ON Accelerate 7 saw 9 exceptional teams complete the program, who drew in over 200 attendees at the Showcase event in Sydney.
  • ON Accelerate 8 Bootcamp welcomed 20 innovative teams, with the advancing teams officially announced in December.
  • 5 Research to Value workshops held for publicly funded universities across 4 states, fostering growth and innovation.
  • Through CSIRO x UniSQ iLAuNCH, ON Prime 13 and 14 engaged with 16 remarkable teams in the space manufacturing sector.
  • Together, with over 300 of you, we celebrated the inaugural ON Core event in Sydney with worthwhile discussions, collaborative knowledge-sharing, and meaningful networking experiences.
  • All of this was achieved with the unwavering support of 125 active mentors from the ON community.

By the end of 2023, we’re thrilled to have welcomed another 550+ ON Alumni. This means more researchers equipped not only to better articulate their work, but also empowered to validate their research in market and take steps to research translation if they choose to. Get set to do it all over again! Read about all this and more in the ON January newsletter and buckle up for 2024, it's going to be an enormous year.

ON Prime 15: Applications are now open!

Know a team who want to sharpen their research communication skills with ON Prime? This is a no-cost program designed to help research teams of two to five people gain a deep insight into the market that most benefits from their research. Applications to participate in ON Prime open twice a year. Read more about ON Prime on the website or sign up to an upcoming briefing session to learn more.

ON Core Highlights

Just in case you missed it – ON Core 2023 was a blast! Filled with insightful discussions, new perspectives, and an exceptional line up of guest speakers with quality insights, it was a day about sharing fast failings, key learnings and what it takes to lead a deep tech start-up. Explore it all on the ON Core website. Access speaker insights, session highlights, and dive into our networking lounge available for another few weeks. Don't miss the chance check out the ON Core photo gallery – it was a vibe.

ON Accelerate 8: Australia’s next wave of innovators

Get to know the new teams making strides in ON Accelerate 8! We've had over 4800 researchers, from 55 Australian universities and research groups hone their research translation skills through the ON Program. With a whopping 70 new companies formed by ON Alumni to date - that's the magic of our community in action. Meet the ON Accelerate 8 cohort.

ON Track

Not all research translation pathways are the same, ON Track is a video series featuring ON Alumni who have taken their work from research through to company creation and beyond. Stay tuned as we talk to a range of CEOs, founders, and researchers – all ON Alumni and all taking a different pathway to their research translation. In episode one, we speak with Louise Brown, the co-founder and CEO of HydGene Renewables. Following the successful completion of ON Prime and ON Accelerate programs, Louise and her team established HydGene Renewables—a pioneering deep-tech synthetic biology startup in 2020. Watch Louise’s story.

What’s ON Trend: Longitudinal study

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Help us understand the long-term impact of ON

It's time for an ON Program pulse check, and in the coming weeks we'll be sending out information about our longitudinal study to the ON Alumni community via our survey provider RTI (please keep an eye on your spam mailbox). If you've participated in a ON Program longitudinal study in the past – thank you! Your feedback is crucial to us. We're eager to hear about your current projects, your science team's advancements, and your company's journey since ON. Help us understand the long-term impact of ON by taking a moment to complete the survey. Your participation means a lot to us, and we appreciate your input. Thank you!

Ecosystem Opportunities

Industry PhD Program: Information Webinar – 7 February

Become a program partner and support a PhD student with a research project that tackles a real-world problem. Students are jointly supervised by the industry partner, the student's university, and CSIRO. Expressions of interest will open from 1 February 2024. Find out more about becoming a partner by registering for the upcoming Industry PhD information webinar or visit the Industry PhD website.

Gap Blitz program: For founders ready for scale!

GAP BLITZ is an intensive 12-week coaching program for founders and early stage startups. It focuses on performance gaps within startup ventures and supporting founders to gear up for growth. Facilitated by seasoned coaches and innovation experts, it’s a chance to explore what growth could mean and establishing performance benchmarks for success. The 12-week program will kick off from 20 February 2024. Visit the GapBlitz website or apply now!

_SOUTHSTART 2024

Join us at _SOUTHSTART, happening from 5 - 7 March in Adelaide, SA! This event is all about exchange of ideas, tools, networks, and knowledge essential for startups aiming to initiate, expand, and thrive while championing our planet and people. We’re proud to be an Innovation Partner with _SOUTHSTART and have a special fireside chat to be announced. Our ON team will be onsite, reach out if you’d like to connect! Get your tickets to _SOUTHSTART.

ON Alumni in the news

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