Tag: Southern Cross Venture Partners

The program will pick five winners, each of whom would get $100,000, “based on the most progressive ideas that represent entrepreneurship and innovation around technologies, processes and business models.” Additionally, GE and its partners will help commercialise these ideas, which is where the bulk of the $10 million program will kick in.

Australia plans to invest over $13 billion in clean energy projects. It also has launched a $200 million Renewable Energy Venture Capital Fund in order to tap private sector initiatives. Investors are keen to support new, clean energy technologies.

Australia’s renewable energy record is hardly laudable. Only 1.7% of all electricity produced in the country comes from renewable sources. In consumption, the record is a lot better at 5.2%, but that is because of generous exports of non-renewable energy. Consequently, the bid to tap venture capital is a critical step toward accomplishing the goal of 20% share for renewable energy by the year 2020.

On World Sight Day, judges of the University of Queensland (UQ) Business School’s $100,000 Enterprize competition finals voted resoundingly for an innovation that could control the world’s single largest cause of blindness – cataract, a clouding of the eye’s lens among older populations. Calpain Therapeutics, an Adelaide startup that has developed a drug that can slow the onset of cataract, won the nation’s richest business plan competition, ahead of four others shortlisted.