TechSydney

Jan 28, 2020

TechSydney partners with various startups and businesses to create Envirotech Alliance Athina Mallis 2020-01-28 Technology advocacy body TechSydney has partnered with a number of startups and environmental businesses to form the Envirotech Alliance, an association focusing on creating businesses that aim to have a positive environmental impact. The startups involved in the Envirotech Alliance include SparkClub, Fishburners, Launch Group and Girl Geek Academy. TechSydney said it is focusing on creating more vertical market events and meet-ups with Envirotech leading the event series. The Envirotech Alliance will exchange ideas, tips, tricks and survival techniques and provide a support network to those in the envirotech industry trying to carve a way forward. Fleur Brown, director at TechSydney said the initiative was an obvious step to support the growing shift into climate impact specific work as the world confronts the challenges of the climate crisis. She said, “Technology has a crucial role to play in addressing the climate crisis effects and solutions – and our community is in a unique position to be able to accelerate the impact of those solutions. “There are so many enthusiastic founders working in this space and our aim is to generate community support for their efforts whilst encouraging more founders and investors into the space. “If we can demonstrate by scale how big the market really is in Australia that is great for brand Australia, good for tech and will reap dividends for all Australians,” said Brown. The Envirotech Alliance will host regular meetups, create focused forums and a community platform for government advocacy around support for Australian-grown environmental technology solutions. Spark Club founder Grant McDowell said energy tech is a fast-growing market in Australia, particularly as the renewables uptake gathers scale. “We established Spark Club in 2017 to bring the leading minds in the future energy sector together. We began with 100 members and the intention of building an energy tech ecosystem to harness Australia’s natural advantages in renewable energy and become the Silicon Valley of energy. “Australia’s high electricity prices, great solar and wind resources, world renowned university engineering departments and broken energy policy creates the perfect petri dish for leading energy tech to emerge. Our growing community of over 400 energy startup founders and industry leaders is working on groundbreaking solutions developed here in Australia to be exported to a global market. “No matter what the political climate, these solutions are world class and Australia has the opportunity to capture the financial and carbon saving success in the global energy transition we’re embarking on,” he said. Fishburners has committed to hosting the Envirotech Alliance for their regular meetups at it’s Sydney CBD premises as the non-profit organisation steps-up its commitment to supporting impact entrepreneurs. Fishburners, which supports more than 350 founders nationally, estimates that as many as 15 per cent of their current startups are focused on environmental and sustainability solutions. Dr Katherine Woodthorpe, chair at Fishburners said the startup hub is on board to provide as much support as they can to the entrepreneurs coming up with solutions. “Technology and innovation is key to finding our way out of this global environmental crisis and as Australia’s largest startup community we have a significant role to play in that. “I have no doubt that with our ingenuity and collectivity, we can come out of this with a stronger, healthier and safer world,” Woodthorpe said. Sarah Moran co-founder and CEO of Girl Geek Academy, said “Women and girls have a huge role to play in confronting the current challenges confronting us as a nation, as a world. As the technology frontier creates a powerful impact, we plan to heed global advice and research and shake up the “people power” within the engine room of startup solution providers.”  The first meetup scheduled for March 17 at Fishburners, Sydney.