The City of Casey has launched The INNovation Crowd, a new initiative designed to comprehensively support local startup businesses in the Casey Cardinia region.
The program was developed after Council recognised the great economic value of keeping local startup talent in the region and the need to better support them. Council, working on behalf of the Casey Cardinia region, formed a working party made up of representatives of Federation University, Casey Tech School, industry experts and local successful startup business people to work out a solution, and so, The INNovation Crowd was born.
The program will create a platform to provide opportunities for education, collaboration and mentorship and provide a space and environment to help startups by new entrepreneurs to succeed.
City of Casey Mayor Cr Geoff Ablett was joined by Cardinia Shire Mayor Cr Collin Ross and those involved in establishing the initiative to officially launched The INNovation Crowd on Saturday 14 July, with local startups and entrepreneurs now invited to join the program.
“In recent years we have seen significant growth in business startups, and alongside that growth we have seen many support mechanisms in the form of co-working spaces, meetups, incubators and mentor networks, but unfortunately most of these supports are very Melbourne CBD centric. This means that local entrepreneurs either travel to the CBD to network and meet like-minded people, or they do it on their own,” Cr Ablett said.
“The INNovation Crowd is here to change that for our region, with the vision to build a ‘place-based’ startup ecosystem that is recognised as the number one destination in the south east region for local entrepreneurs to start their journey. “The initiative will allow startups and local entrepreneurs to gain training and mentoring from industry experts, undertake meaningful collaboration and seek real opportunities for commercialisation of their product or service.”
The initiative was recently recognised by LaunchVic, a State Government body created to activate the startup economy in Victoria, which granted the Casey Cardinia Region funding to improve access and participation in the new local startup community.
“This injection of funding means that we can launch The INNovation Crowd sooner than planned, so we thank the State Government for the support,” the Mayor added.
There’s some great events planned for The INN Crowd including masterclasses, mentor support programs, monthly themed training sessions, bootcamps with intensive mentoring and regular meetups.
If you’re interested in joining The INN Crowd, the first events are:
- INNovation Crowd meetup: Wednesday 8 August 2018
- Lunch and Learn: Tuesday 21 August 2018