UNCUT

The University of Queensland is hosting Ventures Uncut: Lessons from failure.

Our guest speakers will share their stories of failure including the lessons they learned and how their failures ultimately led to success. Join us for an evening of uncensored discussions, catering, and networking.

Event details: 

Date: Thursday 25 May 2023
Time: 5.30pm for a 6pm start, until 9pm AEST
Venue: Level 2, Newstead Brewing Co, 67 Castlemaine Street, Milton, Queensland 4064

Register today


Guest speakers

Will Shrapnel
Will Shrapnel, Founder and MD of HeliMods

Will is a well know Sunshine Coast entrepreneur, tech leader and community volunteer. He is the Founder and MD of HeliMods, an aerospace tech company that provides high value products and services that support essential air networks operating in international and domestic markets.

Will’s diverse background as an aircraft technician and pilot, combined with his degree qualifications in aerospace engineering and business economics, has enabled him to take a unique and pioneering view of the aerospace industry and build a business that cuts across facets of complex design, digital engineering, and advanced manufacturing to solve challenging problems in global domains.

Will has grown HeliMods from the ground up into a world renowned, multi-award-winning company, including the Premier of Queensland’s 2019 Regional Exporter of the Year and Telstra’s 2018 Queensland Business of the Year. A true Industry 4.0 practitioner and first principles innovator, Will is passionate about community and combining cutting-edge technology with top talent to create multigenerational value in global industries from the Sunshine Coast.

Read more on how HeliMods founder proves the sky's no limit for technology and innovation in regional Queensland in UQ's Contact Magazine.


Maxine Horne
Maxine Horne, Non-Executive Director of ASX-listed Vita Group

Maxine Horne started her own business in 1993, with an idea (that went against the trend) and just under $5,000. In 1995, the brand of Fone Zone was created with the first store opening in Pacific Fair shopping centre on the Gold Coast. Maxine grew the business to more than 160 Fone Zone stores and led the group to secure Telstra’s only Master Licence, moving on to own and operate 100 plus Telstra-branded stores for more than a decade. During this time, Maxine led the company through the numerous challenges that came with scaling a small business from a single outlet, to a major corporate, and then in 2005, a publicly-listed company – Vita Group (ASX: VTG) – all whilst operating in a fast-growing category and delivering prolific growth.

Maxine was named QBR Business Woman of the Year for Retail in 2006. In 2014, she received the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Industry category, Northern region and was inducted into the Businesswoman's Hall of Fame. In 2016, she released her biography, ‘Think Smart, Run Hard’ which talks about the lessons she learnt in starting and running her business, and in 2019 she was honoured to receive The Courier-Mail Award for Business Person of the Year.


Carl Hartmann
Carl Hartmann, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Lyre's Spirit Co

Carl Hartmann is a prominent, multi-award winning Australian serial entrepreneur, who is best known for his work in co-founding Temando, Compono and Lyre’s Non-Alcoholic Spirit Co, and his involvement as an investor and board member/advisor to a range of leading technology companies around the world.

Carl Co-Founded his first startup Temando in response to the disconnect between the delivery experience consumers were receiving and the fulfillment capability of today’s merchants. 

Having experience firsthand the challenges of talent in a fast-growing technology company, after exiting Temando, Carl co-founded Compono, which brings a data driven view to talent, applying algorithmic matching around skills, qualifications, and culture. 

Most recently, Carl also co-founded Lyre’s Spirit Co – an innovative beverage company using cutting edge food science, that has recreated all the major alcoholic spirits in non-alcoholic format. Lyre’s has raised over $80M to date and has quickly become not only the most awarded product in the non-alcoholic spirit category with over 300 awards, but also the largest in terms of both revenue and global distribution (available in over 100 countries).


Panel Moderator

Dr Kana Imuta
Dr Kana Imuta, Founder of toki

Dr Kana Imuta is a Senior Lecturer in the UQ School of Psychology. Over the last decade, Kana has researched and taught how humans connect and disconnect, and is now ready to take the science out into the real world.

To do this, Kana joined the UQ Ventures ilab Accelerator 2023 cohort to develop her startup 'toki' - 'toki' in Japanese means "a moment in time" and is an app-to-be driven by a mission to make social connection spontaneously accessible. 

 

 

 

 

Venue

Level 2, Newstead Brewing Co, 67 Castlemaine Street, Milton, Queensland 4064

Contact 

Please contact Chloe Budd, Ventures Community Partnerships Coordinator, for more information about Ventures Uncut.