Australia's first start-up festival to begin in September

Recently formed nonprofit StartupAUS is arranging a three-week festival to promote technology entrepreneurship in Australia.

Startup Spring 2013 will be a nationwide festival aiming to promote the tech start-up community and encourage more Australians to start their own businesses.

The festival will have more than 50 events and activities, ranging from conferences and pitching workshops to barbecues and cocktail events.

Planned events include tours of Sydney start-up communities, the Google for Entrepreneurs Meetup and Startup Weekends such as the one held in Adelaide last month.

Alan Noble, founding board member of StartupAUS and Engineering Director at Google Australia, said the time is ripe for an event aimed at encouraging start-up activity.

“Australia has film festivals, music festivals and wine festivals which are a tremendous celebration of our culture. Now, it’s time for the country’s first start-up festival,” he said.

“With today’s focus on how Australia can maintain its wealth beyond the resource sector, there’s never been a better time for Australia to become the creators, rather than just the consumers, of technology.”

StartupAUS was formed in March by members of the Australian start-up community.

The non-profit estimates that the Australian start-up sector has the potential to contribute $109 billion to the Australian economy and generate some 500,000 jobs by 2033.

Startup Spring 2013 will run between 18 September and 9 October. A full list of events can be viewed here.

Image courtesy of Heisenberg Media under CC