2019-02-12 Services & Organisation Committee Agenda

SERVICES & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                               12 FEBRUARY 2019


Organisation                          Description of Collaboration
Coolum Beach State High School        Girls in STEM program at the Hub, STEAM Educators group
                                      support
Chancellor State College              Hosting of Robotics workshops to develop skill base amongst
                                      local school students and educators
Refinery - Sunshine Coast Council’s   Assistance with program conception, provision of sponsored
Creative Accelerator                  facilities to participants
CCIQ Noosa                            Co-curation of business education program to lift Chamber
                                      members’ digital literacy & understanding of key disruptive
                                      technologies, eg Artificial Intelligence (Ai)
SunCoast Angels                       Hosting of pitch meetings
Noosa Boardroom                       Co-curation of business education program, joint digital nomad
                                      recruitment program
Junction2 Co-working                  Joint digital nomad recruitment program, cross-referrals &
                                      facility sharing
Innovate Noosa                        Hosting and co-curation of business education programs to lift
                                      digital literacy amongst Noosa businesses
Causeway Innovation                   Hosting of Innovation Masterclass, assistance with
                                      promotion/recruitment & content capture

8.    FUTURE DIRECTION
To grow co-working, the Hub will be launching new memberships for digital storytellers:
businesses that produce digital content, serve a national/international audience/client base, plan
to grow and employ people. These members will be accommodated in a cluster upstairs with
access to A/V facilities.
Through the Hub’s establishment phase, two key shortcomings in the local digital ecosystem
have been revealed and need to be addressed if Council’s economic development objectives are
to be achieved:

●     There is a sub-scale entrepreneurial base, i.e. an insufficient number of genuine start-up
      founders looking to create high-growth companies that will ultimately generate high value
      jobs in the sector. This is evidenced in the makeup of the Hub’s membership and the
      marketing insights gained thus far, i.e. Noosa has a high proportion of freelancers,
      consultants and agencies but has a relatively low proportion of start-ups.

      There is no quick fix to this challenge. The Hub will be applying to the Department of
      Industry and Innovation for an “Expert in Residence” grant to deliver accelerator programs
      aimed at growing the entrepreneurial base and will be working on a strategic talent
      attraction program.

●     The digital ecosystem is disorganised. Despite the fact that there are numerous digital
      professionals in the Shire, there are a lack of relevant industry groups, regular meetups,
      industry directories, job boards and digital events.

      This makes it difficult to communicate and coordinate the industry, get attendance at
      events, recruit locally, find jobs, find service providers, meet local collaborators, attract
      investors, attract clientele and get integrated into the industry.
      The Hub is seeking grant funding from Advance Queensland’s Regional Hubs Support
      Program which will enable an accelerated organisation of the local digital ecosystem and
      help to address the shortcomings mentioned above.

9.    KPI UPDATE

An interim update is provided against the KPI’s identified for the Hub, it is however really too
early to provide meaningful data, some metrics for measuring such items as brand and profile are
also still being developed.

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