StartupSmart’s top 10 picks for this year’s Startup Spring festival

Startup Spring is gearing up for three weeks of events celebrating Australia’s vibrant tech startup community. Here are 10 of our top picks (in no particular order) for this year’s festival.

Startup Spring launch party Melbourne, October 10

The festival will be launched on Friday October 10th from 5pm at York Butter Factory in collaboration with other participating organisations and Startup companies. There will be food, drinks and lots of good company. Get tickets here.

OzAPP Awards Road Show: York Butter Factory, October 14

York Butter Factory will host the final stop on the OzAPP Awards Australia leg of the Road Show. Join professionals and startups from around Victoria in an open discussion with Bill Tai and the OzAPP Awards. Get tickets here.

66 MeetUps: Networking is not A Dirty Word, Sydney

Lots of newly-started businesses find themselves working at the kitchen table or a desk in a shared studio. While Instagram is fantastic for connecting with creatives, if you want to met people face-to-face it seems there are limited opportunities aside from occasional exhibition openings and product launches. While tech startups pride themselves on being “well networked”, it can seem a little challenging for creatives to connect to their industry in ways that really matter. Get tickets here

Slingshot Jumpstart Launch Melbourne, October 15

NRMA and Slingshot accelerator would love you to join them to help launch Jumpstart, Australia’s newest accelerator programme for high tech entrepreneurs.
Jumpstart is looking for people with an idea in the high tech space who want help getting that idea off the ground. We are also seeking scale-ups who already have a product, but need help acquiring a large customer base. Get tickets here.

DiG Festival 2014, Newcastle, October 16

The DiG Festival is a two-day event loosely based on the extremely successful SXSW festivals in Austin, Texas, which are run over three weeks and cover film, music and interactive. Over the three years SXSW has helped Austin become recognised as a leading technology centre with a vibrant artistic culture. SXW now contributes over $100 million to the Austin economy annually. The Australasian DiG Festival features a series of keynote presentations, panels and workshops by international, national and local industry leaders. There is a strong emphasis on innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and ethical business. Get tickets here.

Get started in digital marketing: a free lunchtime class, October 16

The digital landscape is moving at a lightning fast pace. Every industry has been affected by the advances in digital, from retailers to brands and agencies. In this free class, you will learn the basics to get started on a digital marketing campaign for your business or startup. Get an overview on the different ways digital marketing can be used to optimise and measure the success of campaigns across various marketing channels. Get tickets here.

Open Day at Fishburners, October 17

Come experience Australia’s largest startup space for a day. The open day will include a full tour of the co-working space, a chat with members over morning tea, five workshops ranging from online marketing to outsourcing and an afternoon pitch and networking event with Fishburner members. More details here.

Dare Festival & GA Presents: The future of the workplace

Dare Festival Melbourne presents Jurgen Appelo and Jim Breeze for a discussion that explores the changing world of work and how workers, managers and companies need to change too. Jurgen will be previewing his talk at Dare festival and will be giving you an insight into what he sees the future trends are in workplaces from his travels around the world. Jim will be passing on his observations about how this affects Australia. We will have an opportunity for questions, before having drink courtesy of General Assembly. Get tickets here.

Health tech innovation Queensland meetup, Brisbane, October 21

This inaugural event will be very focused on networking Queensland health tech stakeholders, in particular, showcasing and supporting a foundation cohort of exciting healthcare innovations. These include an amazing wound opening/closing device, a new synthetic protein technology for healing difficult to treat wounds, world best practice nutrition and exercise programs – and many more. The aim is to help create an ongoing format or charter for the group to encourage innovation and support the next generation of health entrepreneurs. Get tickets here.

Meetup – writing for entrepreneurs, Adelaide, October 23

This meetup is for entrepreneurs who want to talk strategy, learn writing skills, and bounce their writing off other like-minded people before putting it out into the world. Develop your tone, voice, and style… and discover things about what you’ve already written, of which you may not be aware. Step back from the trees and into the forest. This meetup is a writers’ group, but specifically for those who need to create written content for their startups. Get tickets here.