Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

What’s happening in the Tech ecosystem down under? I Selected

Join us on Tuesday, May 18th at 2pm CET to learn about Australia…

Program:

Tech ecosystem down under

In this diverse session with speakers from various industries and locations (Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane) we’ll dive into the Australian tech ecosystem and how it grew over the past years, but most importantly you’ll be able to find out who are the startup beacons and why you should invest in them. You’ll also be able to pick up useful intel about each city’s community infrastructure, support orgs and hubs.

Register here ti.to/sesamers/tour-2021/


Meet the speakers

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Kate Eriksson

Chief Program Officer at YBF Ventures and Director of the YBF Startup Immersion Program. Kate is a former PwC Partner and Head of Disruption. She has spent over twenty years in leadership roles in Europe, Australia, Asia and the United States––spanning growth, strategy, innovation, and customer experience, and building digital capability and ventures.

Her experience incorporates working for and together with some of the world’s largest brands. She co-founded Silicon Valley innovation centre, AT&T Foundry in the US and Israel, and was a founding member of PwC Digital’s leadership team. She has deep technology experience, including 14 years with telecoms giant Ericsson’s mobile ventures, building new business models and platforms used by companies like Twitter and Skype, and she has been active in banking, open banking and fintech.

Kate is a sought-after speaker, not-for-profit board member, advocate for women in technology, and venture founder. She is also growing her own medtech startup venture in parallel to her role at YBF, at YBF Melbourne.

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Richard Celm

Richard is the cofounder and Exec Program Director of Startupbootcamp Australia, where he overseas numerous startup and corporate programs in Fintech, Food, Energy and Sports.

Richard started his professional career in the Adrenaline Sports Industry, setting up his own business before working in the states for Watson Laminates, the 2nd largest manufacturer of skateboards in the world at the time. He then moved into tech, investing in early stage e-commerce businesses before moving to London, setting up an innovation centre in Shoreditch, managing an investment fund and running startup programs for 10 years. Since returning to Australia in 2014, he’s been very active in the startup scene, as a Director, Founder, Investment and Mentor with a portfolio of about 100 global startups.

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Kaylene Langford

Kaylene Langford is a passionate entrepreneur, coach, writer and speaker, and the founder and owner of StartUp Creative, a hugely popular online platform, podcast, and print magazine that educates, inspires and supports creative entrepreneurs and future innovators. Kaylene works closely with individuals as a career coach as well as with organisations as a business consultant and keynote speaker. In her almost-non-existent spare time, she walks her own talk with a busy yet balanced schedule of exercise, meditation, sunshine-seeking, reading, research and personal goal-setting, as well as the occasional sneaky Instagram scroll. Her first book How to Start a Side Hustle is forthcoming from Hardie Grant Books.

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Chad Renando

Chad Renando is mapping and measuring the impact of entrepreneurs across Australia at your.startupstatus.co. As part of this research, Chad helps governments, universities, corporations, innovation hubs, and entrepreneur programs measure the long-term impact of their innovation investment and help regions connect entrepreneurial activity to community resilience. Chad is also a professional facilitator, speaker, coach, and researcher. Chad comes from a diverse background in fast growth manufacturing and digital firms, and is currently a Research Fellow in Innovation Ecosystems with the Rural Economies Centre of Excellence at USQ, a Research Fellow with the Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research at QUT, Director of the not for profit Startup Status, and Managing Director-Australia with the Global Entrepreneurship Network.

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Alan Jones

Entrepreneur in Residence (EiR), investor, tech entrepreneur and mentor, Alan has advised hundreds of Australian startups and invested in many of the best.

Originally a content operations producer for Microsoft’s Sidewalk city guide startup, Alan was Yahoo!’s first technical hire in Australia and went on to become Product Director, South Asia for Yahoo! Inc. He then was a co-founder and head of content and product development for home entertainment tech startup HomeScreen Entertainment, backed by the Packer family’s CPH, acquired by Quickflix. Alan was a founding investor in Pollenizer, Startmate and Blackbird Ventures. His startup services agency The New Agency built AAP MediaNet, Autogenie and EmploymentHero before being acquired by BlueChilli in 2012.

Alan’s previous investments include Bugcrowd, Buzzy, Biteable, Cardly, Chromasun, Elevio, GeoSnap, HappyCo, HowAboutEat, Macropod, Muru Music, Propeller Aero, Shoeboxed, TopMe, Tzukuri, Tyde, Workyard, UpGuard and Upperstory. Alan has advised founders in startup accelerators BlueChilli, Startmate, Catalysr, Muru-D and Collider, as well as advising clients of KPMG’s High Growth Ventures team as an Entrepreneur in Residence.

Register here ti.to/sesamers/tour-2021/

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