This year didn’t unfold like a plan - it unfolded like a proof.
When I began as Chief Student Entrepreneur at UQ, I thought the role was a platform.
Now I realise it was a vantage point: a way of seeing how ideas move, how systems respond, and how identity evolves when it’s given surface area.
The moment that shift became obvious wasn’t in a meeting or milestone, it was on a stage delivering a valedictory address. I spoke to hundreds of students, parents, mentors and strangers. Somewhere between the first word and the applause, I realised I wasn’t just describing my journey.
I was narrating who I was becoming as it was happening.
Speaking this year became a feedback loop. Every panel, workshop, meeting, and keynote forced me to articulate frameworks instead of just experiences - and in doing that, I started recognising patterns: in myself, in founders, in institutions, and in the way opportunity behaves.
This role didn’t exist in isolation. UQ Ventures shaped the environment that made this growth possible. Through exposure like representing Ventures at Brisbane City Council panels, meeting with ministers, being invited to keynotes, workshops, mentoring sessions, and global ecosystem tours, I wasn’t just participating - I was being stretched. This expanded my sense of what doors could even exist. I’m deeply grateful for that.
I used to think opportunity was something you chased. Now I know it’s something you become.
And once that shifts, the environment shifts with you.
Seeing the Pattern
As I moved between industries - startups, law, tech, policy, even sport - what once felt like noise began organising itself. The language, incentives, and pace changed, but beneath all of it, the same structure appeared.
Every field signals trust to solve the same underlying problem: reducing uncertainty.
- In venture, trust looks like narrative — a future people can believe in.
- In politics, it looks like ceremony — stability performed as ritual.
- In law, it looks like relationships and precedent — proof earned over time.
- In tech, it looks like systems — encoded into infrastructure, not personality.
The world revealed itself as a set of familiar shapes wearing different uniforms.
But patterns only matter when they survive contact with reality. SeatFinder became that test.
SeatFinder: From an Idea to a Stake in the World
SeatFinder didn’t become real when we built something. It became real when I started thinking in terms of:
- markets
- leverage
- timing
- compounding effects
The product evolved, but so did the mindset behind it.
What began as a teenage travel frustration became a live case study in distribution across borders, customer types, and operating environments.
Across Australia, Shanghai, San Francisco and New York, I noticed founders asking the same question: How do I start?
Followed by:
When things settle…
When I know more…
When I’m ready…
In Shanghai, I met a founder who had built with no funding, no safety net, and no certainty. When I asked how he knew it was the right time to begin, he laughed:
“There is no right time - only time you waste.”
Scarcity forces precision.
Constraints create clarity.
Timing rarely aligns.
People who build aren’t waiting, they begin. And motion teaches in a way planning never will.
Learning What No One Teaches
Some lessons only arrive through exposure:
- The most valuable information is often the part left unsaid.
- Networks don’t expand linearly, they compound.
- People respond to clarity.
- Momentum is permission.
And the biggest one:
Most people don’t lack ability: they lack permission.
But permission isn’t given, it’s created in motion.
This year, my identity moved faster than my circumstances. There were days I felt misaligned, like I was outgrowing expectations other people still believed I belonged to. At first it felt like tension, until I realised something:
The space between certainty and collapse is where accelerated growth happens.
A new version emerged, not waiting to be trusted, but learning to build her own runway.
For Whoever Comes Next
If you don’t feel ready - good. That means you’re in the right place.
You don’t need certainty.
You don’t need perfect timing.
You don’t need permission.
The world reorganises around people who move.
What I’m Carrying Forward
Every reflection ends somewhere, but growth doesn’t. Now that I know I can shape systems, the question becomes:
Which ones will I choose?
For the first time, uncertainty feels less like a gap and more like a doorway.
Begin anyway.