Think back to 2004 for a moment. It was the year that NASA launched the Gravity Probe B. The classic iPod was the must have portable music device. Bluetooth was considered the wave of the future. All were great feats of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.
It was also the year Swinburne hosted the very first AGSE IERE Conference, now known as the Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research Exchange (ACERE) Conference – another feat of innovation.
Eighteen years ago, Swinburne’s Emeritus Professor Murray Gillin had the vision to initiate a space for people to exchange ideas and entrepreneurship research in order to build a better tomorrow, inspired by the Babson College Entrepreneurship Conference in the United States. He set about organising an annual conference to be co-hosted in a different Australian or New Zealand city each year. This year, the ACERE conference returned to Swinburne for the first time since 2011 under the theme, ‘Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Commercialisation of Research’.
Quote from founder and CEO of TrustedPeer Entrepreneurship, Philip Bouchard, in his keynote speech at the Industry Entrepreneurs Forum, 2022 ACERE Conference.
Ideas shared from across the globe
This year saw 151 abstracts accepted and a record number of people registering to exchange ideas, share knowledge and collectively grow over four days.
Swinburne Adjunct Professor, Jo Barraket, was one of the event’s speakers – joined by standouts like guests from MIT Bootcamps, mobile learning platform Quitch, Adjunct Professor Dean Shepherd from the Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research, and the University of Oklahoma’s world-renowned entrepreneurship researcher Tom Lumpkin.
“Leading entrepreneurs worldwide are realising that individuals – including small groups and single companies – cannot achieve the kinds of social impacts they want to achieve,” said Professor Barraket.
Speaking of approaches entrepreneurs could implement, such as social procurement, Professor Barraket gave the example that a government may procure a multi-billion-dollar road and include in that a condition that a certain proportion of people involved in the construction have experienced long-term unemployment or are from disadvantaged social groups.
She spoke to the commonalities between entrepreneurs and researchers across the globe and gave her advice, “We need to leave egos and logos at the door and build common value.”
Supported by sponsors
The ACERE Conference is organised annually by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and was this year co-hosted by the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship (AGSE) at Swinburne University of Technology. AGSE offers practical and experiential business management and leadership courses with an eye for innovation and the ability to lead others boldly into new territories.
This year’s conference organisers were Professor Martin Obschonka and Dr Rui Torres de Oliveira from the Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research, QUT Business School, and Swinburne’s Professor Mile Terziovski.
The ACERE Industry Entrepreneurs Forum was supported by sponsors , the super fund for Australia’s thinkers, creators and investigators, and innovative med-tech company, .
