If not you, who? If not now, when?
Hillel the Elder, quoted by Sanjana Chandramohan, High School student and course designer
This was the call to action from high school student Sanjana Chandramohan, who at fourteen had launched Deseyen Center and has since sold her Udemy course to 85 paying customers, not to mention co-founding InnovateX, a STEM program at her school to mentor and teach younger students about design thinking. Similar calls to action and stories of entrepreneurial vision were evident throughout the 2023 UTS Startups Summit, where around 2,000 year 9 and 10 students came to the International Convention Centre, Sydney, to learn what it takes to get into the startup business.
YouTube gamers and hydroponics meet craft kits and consent
Entrepreneurship is like scribbles on a piece of paper, it doesn’t run in straight lines…
Audience member, high school
Designed to show current, relatable examples of what’s possible for young entrepreneurs, the Summit pulled together an exciting line-up of speakers who were in the same position as the audience not so long ago, wondering where their future was headed and what career options were available. Their backgrounds and journeys into entrepreneurship were diverse and, as the audience noted, full of twists and turns.
Speakers and their growing startup businesses included:
- Marcus Radice-Jones – Founder of Grow Your Gaming Channel
- Angelique Wan, former UTS graduate and Co-Founder of Consent Labs, a youth-led not-for-profit dedicated to ending gender-based violence through consent education
- Ed Colyer, Co-Founder and Head of Product at Clipboard, a platform for schools to manage extracurricular programs
- Nakisah Williams, Co-Founder of Craft Club, a business selling DIY craft kits (and beautiful rugs!)
- Dilhan Wickremanayake, Co-Founder of gathera, using hydroponic technology to rapidly grows food and plants in compact spaces
- Emily Bobis, Founder of Compass IoT, creating software to help transport professionals improve road safety, transport, and infrastructure.
Their stories feature moments of truth (“I realised I had spent a total of 74 days gaming during my HSC year”) and failures galore, as they iterate over and over to find the features and unique points that give them an edge in business. None have had an easy road, whether it was raising funds, convincing stakeholders to become partners, or simply finding the acceptance of well-meaning parents who didn’t understand the entrepreneurial road less travelled.
Never too early: teens building startups in and out of school
Along with the indefatigable hosts Dr Naomi Koh Belic and UTS Startups Inspiration Manager Aaron Ngan, whose step-count must have hit a new record as he raced up and down the arena stairs to include as many young students as possible in Q&A during the day, a key feature of the day was a short showcase of current student entrepreneurs. Still in high school, they had taken on sustainability, education and technology challenges and come up with solutions that were viable businesses, earning their founders both an income as well as invaluable startup experience.
The four student presenters were:
- Monique Tsabalas, Santa Sabina College – representing a school team startup tackling fashion waste that has so far salvaged 75kg of clothing from landfill
- Lucinda O’Brien, Northholm Grammar School – representing Safety Shadow, a small attachable safety device to detect high-impact falls by alerting emergency contacts of the wearer’s location
- Oliver Noakes, Redlands – spoke about his experience establishing an app and website design business during COVID, which has grown to around 100 clients in 14 countries
- Sanjana Chandramohan, The Ponds High School – shared her exploration of design thinking, and her ambition to share these skills with other young people.
Recordings of short presentations from all the speakers on the day are coming soon. For now, you can find out more about UTS Startups and follow all the action (including behind the scenes at the Startups Summit!) on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.