Innovation in scientific, technological and engineering organisations

Fresh Innovators is a national competition to select 16 early-career entrepreneurs to present their work in Sydney during the Innovation Festival in April to audiences including the media, business groups, students and the general public.

Why nominate for Fresh Innovators?

• Fresh Innovators offers the potential for wide media exposure for the work of your organisation.
• Fresh Innovators encourages and recognises the best young innovators and entrepreneurs from the fields of science, technology and engineering.
• Fresh Innovators helps young innovators develop expertise in presenting their ideas clearly to a general audience and to the media.
• Fresh Innovators assists the media to identify and publish accurate innovation stories and helps to demonstrate the economic benefits of innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization.

The selected innovators are likely to gain substantial media exposure.

The innovator judged by the organisers to have most successfully met the aims of “Fresh Innovators” will receive a study tour to the UK courtesy of and coordinated by the British Council.

What will it involve?

The 16 successful nominees will:

• present their innovation to audiences including the Press, students, the public and relevant businesses and government bodies in Sydney during the Innovation Festival;
• have access to experienced science communicators to advise on their presentation and media release;
• undertake a media conference and further media interviews;
• swap ideas with other participants, and attend the Fresh Innovators dinner;
• participate in a one day media training course and in a debriefing workshop where they will have the opportunity to review the media reports of their work.

Travel and accommodation will be provided for participants from outside Sydney.

The selection criteria are:

The innovation must have been developed in Australia or by an Australian.

• You must include references demonstrating the utility of your innovation and evidence that it is functional and on the track to making a difference in business or in the community.
• You and your innovation must not have had significant media coverage.
• You must demonstrate your capacity to liaise with commercial partners and other end users.
• You must demonstrate your ability to present your innovation to a lay audience in an informative, interesting and easily visual way.
• The innovation must be cleared for presentation to the public and the media.
• Research teams may nominate, but a single person who has played a substantial role in the research must be named as spokesperson. Only she /he will be invited to present the work.
• You must be willing to give talks upon your return home from the Fresh Innovators program.
• Preference will be given to innovators in the early stages of their career and without an established media profile. (For researchers, this would normally mean within 5 years of their PhD)

Nominations to be made on the Fresh Innovators nomination form – available at www.freshinnovators.org