Discussing start-ups, innovation and the future of work, Mr Shelton said that between 2006 and 2011, Australian start-ups created 1.4 million high value jobs.

“This is important when we think of Australia’s development in terms of international context – it’s not just that we’re creating jobs, we’re creating high value jobs that are competitive on a global stage,” he said.

“Every tech job created in the start-up sector, is also having a flow on effect in other industries and that may be through building capacity in those other sectors and direct collaborations.

“We have been focusing on empowering the next generation of Western Australians with the skills that they need not only to be entrepreneurs but to be more productive members of the economy generally, and a lot of that is around enterprising skills…and…preparing them for the jobs of the future.

“We know that the career that you go into when you graduate university is not necessarily going to be the same profession that you end up with in the long term.

“People need to have a different set of skills to be able to adapt to the changes in their jobs over their life time.

“Young entrepreneurs are increasingly changing how the world works. And that’s because digital technology is allowing people to change entire industries much, much earlier into their careers.”

Mr Shelton also discussed investment in the sector.

“There is a real need to encourage investment especially from WA wealth to WA innovation,” he said.

“We know that there’s been an incredible amount of risk investment into the mining industry for example.

“If you actually look at the mining industry, mining exploration is incredibly analogous actually to tech start-up investment in maybe that you have to invest in 10 start-ups to get one that works…and that you’re taking a punt.

“We have a lot of wealth in WA, it’s actually just trying to work out how best to educate wealth around the opportunities that are available in technology.

Spacecubed Founder and Managing Director, Brodie McCulloch also discussed investment in the start-up sector.

“There has been a lot of talk about innovation from the Federal government,” he said.

“We are starting to see some positive changes around incentives from angel investors and also from the state government about how they better support start-up eco-systems to get ideas off the ground.

“(But) government has the tendency, especially since there is so much interest at the moment, to start their own things or try and run them themselves.

“We’ve really been promoting support (for) what has already been built. We have seen growth in Australia and Western Australia, so why not support (them)?

 

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