US start-up festival to feature in NSW

A local version of San Francisco’s LAUNCH festival will be hosted by NSW in 2018 and 2019.

This will be the first time that the event has been held outside of the US.

“Securing the rights of the LAUNCH festival through Business Events Sydney is a coup for our fast-growing start-up community,” said NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

“NSW is the ‘start-up state’ of Australia, and San Francisco is the birthplace of start-ups.

“To play host to the world’s most famous start-up festival here in Sydney is a great opportunity to support innovative industries and jobs in NSW.”

Berejklian said NSW continued to attract major technology and start-up brands because of the state’s vibrant culture, talent pool, connections with academic institutions and links with Asia.

An increasing number of NSW institutions are teaming up with US corporate and academic partners on leading-edge research projects.

“A great example of collaboration is the joint study between IBM Research, Melanoma Institute Australia and the NSW Government, which will bring together NSW medical expertise and melanoma data with IBM’s cognitive computing,” Berejiklian said.

“This study could help doctors detect melanoma before it reaches a critical stage, and may result in better health outcomes as well as savings to the health system.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/william87

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