Now, that’s a bright idea

A  novel approach to finding the best refinance deal on a home loan has seen local tech start-up, RefiME, take out the latest New Venture Institute gold prize.

The ‘fin-tech’ venture, which aims to stake a claim in Australia’s trillion-dollar home refinancing market, is run by Adam Glocke – one of the graduates from the 12-week New Venture Institute (NVI) Venture Dorm program.

He joined six other finalists in this week’s final ‘eNVIe’ graduation and awards night pitch at the Main Assembly Building at Tonsley to win the main prize of a travel scholarship to the USA in March 2018 to take his new venture to the next level.

The annual 10-day business study tour led by NVI at Flinders includes strategic visits to businesses in Silicon Valley, New York City and time at the annual South By South West (SXSW) technology festival in Austin, Texas.

Close behind RefiME came silver prize winner Dr Andrew Stapleton with Pocket Conference  – a web application which builds on Dr Stapleton’s academic experiences to “bring people together to share in the excitement of scientific discovery”.

Adrian Kendrick’s BLINKR was People’s Choice winner with his cycling apparel designed to make roads safer.

The three other finalists who presented their business ideas were Charlotte Jordans with My Lilli Pilli (gentle indigenous plant skin-care products for new mothers), Michael Hamra with ‘Pigeon’ (a communication platform as an app and network infrastructure tailored to festivals and events) and Shannon Raniga and Rebecca Foreman with an app for parents of pre-schoolers to find parent-friendly places and amenities.

The winners of the Venture Dorm awards Dr Andrew Stapleton, left, Adam Glocke and Adrian Kendrick.

There were 25 participants in the tenth Venture Dorm program which so far has involved hundreds of micro-businesses since its inception in 2013.

Venture Dorm provides an educational environment for people who want to learn how entrepreneurs build new ventures and then create one themselves. The aim is taking an idea, finding a viable business model which is scalable and repeatable, from scratch, in less than 12 weeks.

NVI is the home of innovation and entrepreneurship at Flinders University, helping to launch Innovation and Enterprise topics at Flinders University this year.

The New Venture Institute, based at Flinders at Tonsley, has three main streams of activity:

  1. Business engagement—to act as a front door for industry to engage with the University, facilitating easy navigation of student, staff and research capabilities.
  2. Experiential education—to develop and deliver topics which engage students in real world, real time industry problems, challenges and opportunities. Students work next to industry professionals, including CEOs and executives, to gain an appreciation of the ways in which they need to apply their knowledge in creative, innovative and entrepreneurial ways to solve problems and create value.
  3. New venture creation and business support—to assist students and the broader community to create and grow startups and existing businesses through innovative and practical workshops and a rich entrepreneurial ecosystem at the Tonsley Innovation Precinct.

For more information go to New Venture Institute website here.

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