MEDIA RELEASE
Thursday May 2, 2019
21ST CENTURY CAREER EVENT BUILDS FUTURE BRIDGES FOR GEELONG’S YOUTH.
Geelong, Australia – A powerful line-up of entrepreneurs, global business leaders and STEM Experts (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and hundreds of students, educators and parents from across the Greater Geelong region will come together to rethink the future of the city for the Geelong Youth Innovation Summit this May 2019.
The two-day event delivered in partnership with the Victorian State Government, City of Greater Geelong, newly elected Geelong Youth Council (aged 12-17) and leading global technology businesses will educate and activate 100’s of members of the community so they can design their future careers, engage with exponential technology like robotics, artificial intelligence and the internet of things, play a key role in enabling the city-region to flourish, and contribute to shaping a vibrant future for Greater Geelong as part of the UNESCO Clever & Creative City Strategic Framework.
Geelong Youth Innovation Summit Program
Saturday 11 May - World of Work STEM Expo
The WOW STEM EXPO Geelong will feature phenomenal global speakers, local industry mentors and an interactive multi-company STEM learning space to equip today’s students with the real-world learning they need to thrive in tomorrow’s world of work.
Sunday 12 May - Startup Sprint
Led by a dynamic squad of industry specialists, entrepreneurs and facilitators, students will work in teams across a jam-packed, high-energy day of DesignThinking and Startup business building to unpack complex problems and work on solutions to Greater Geelong biggest future challenges.
Specifically, the Geelong Youth Innovation Summit will:
● Showcase emerging technologies including global/local industry case studies
● Educate attendees about future industries, startup, entrepreneurship and career pathway opportunities to drive future economic prosperity in the Greater Geelong region
● Enable local STEM and research professionals to present programs of work
● Activate creativity and innovation activities via Design Thinking workshops
● Explore the Internet of Things, Smart Cities and the future of transport
● Engage broader community stakeholders in city-region place-making, intercultural workshops and environmental planning
● Cultivate diversity, inclusivity and community social connection
● Explore and showcase world-class sustainable city-wide solutions
Background Information
The founders of the event, Madeleine Grummet (journalist, entrepreneur and mother of four daughters) and fellow Master of Entrepreneurship alumni Edwina Kolomanski (scholar of Entrepreneurship and Law and change and communications expert), have set out to solve the entrepreneurship and digital skills gap and address the STEM pipeline problem in the region by connecting local students with the leaders of today and tomorrow.
girledworld was originally founded to smash the glass ceiling, tackle the workforce gender participation gap, teach girls how to lead and get more girls into startup, entrepreneurship and STEM careers.
The Geelong Youth Innovation Summit will include a female students focussed event on the Saturday, featuring inspiring virtual keynotes and interactive sessions from Silicon Valley female entrepreneurs inside some of the world's biggest companies including Atlassian, Airbnb, Twitter, Virgin and Microsoft, plus talks and workshops from technology companies Envato, Culture Amp and Silverpond, regional business leaders, Geelong startup founders and female leaders in government and corporate institutions unpacking their careers, the skills they use day to day and helping girls shape their mindsets and skill sets as they plan their own career pathways.
Madeleine Grummet, girledworld Co-Founder and CEO, believes the time is now to take action, and that we need a new normal where we see students being engaged to work with industry to solve real-world problems so they gain problem-solving and innovation skills and will be more likely to found startups and create the jobs of the future in Australia.
“The future of work is already here, and for Australia to compete internationally, we need to teach today’s students the critical 21st Century skills they need to be out there building the businesses, solving the problems and driving the engines of growth for the new economy, especially in the regions where there is a skills shortage and shrinking of available industry jobs.”
The recent Gonski 2.0 report and Foundation for Young Australian’s Future Skills Framework 2030 show it’s clear our education system is struggling to keep up in The Knowledge Age.
We need to teach today’s students how to think, how to work in teams, how to solve complex problems, and how to navigate their lives and future careers where they are likely to have up to 17 jobs across 5 different industries.
“We need to bring the outside world in, and give students access to real-world, industry-aligned learning and technology so they can build the enterprise skills and applied knowledge they need to become our country’s job creators, innovators, industry leaders and market game-changers”.
Across two jam-packed days of interactive learning, future city forums, Design Thinking, problem solving, technology immersion and leadership cultivation, attendees will explore exponential technologies, automation, digital disruption and the erosion of traditional ‘safe’ jobs, and speakers will deliver interactive workshops on Design Thinking, teamwork, public speaking, augmented reality, virtual reality, UX, cyber security, agile, coding, drone tech and data science
The Geelong Youth Innovation Summit is aligned to the Australian Curriculum General Capabilities, Design and Digital Technologies learning areas.
For more information or to arrange an interview with the cofounders or speakers please contact hello@girledworld.com or call 0437 582 566.
girledworld Cofounders - BIOS
Co-founder + CEO of girledworld, Madeleine Grummet, is a startup advisor, Design Thinking expert, innovation consultant, Founder of brand agency Do Re Me Creative and Board Director with a background in media and journalism (News Corp, Herald-Sun, Nine Network, ACP). Mother of four daughters, Madeleine also holds a BA (Hons) Monash University, IDEO Design Thinking Certification, Inventium Innovation Certification, and recently completed a Master of Entrepreneurship (First Class Honours) at the University of Melbourne's Wade Institute upskilling in business model development, Lean Startup, agile and Design Thinking.
Contact: Madeleine Grummet
E: mads@girledworld.com
Co-founder + COO of girledworld, Edwina Kolomanski, is currently completing a Juris Doctor of Law on scholarship with Monash University and was most recently inside Telstra driving change and innovation in the ways of working team. Since finishing a Bachelor of Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne and study at New York’s Columbia University (Barnard College), Edwina's career has seen her work across a variety of industries including State Government media, PR and Communications as well as commercial and marketing partnership divisions of the AFL industry and Tennis Australia. Edwina also completed her Master of Entrepreneurship at the University of Melbourne in 2016 (First Class Honours) and is a member of the NewCo Melbourne Advisory Council.
Contact: Edwina Kolomanski
E: edwina@girledworld.com
The birth of a game-changing startup #girledworld
Madeleine and Edwina met in 2016 while undertaking a Master of Entrepreneurship at the University of Melbourne. girledworld was born when the Founders realised they had landed on a very big problem to solve: the gap between current education and the Future of Work. girledworld aims to build the next Generation of entrepreneurs, innovators and STEM leaders with a global edtech platform, interactive events and life-changing career mentoring for teenage students.