November 2020

Good morning <<First Name>>,

How great has the weather been recently?! We hope you've been out and about and enjoying the sunshine... 😎

For those of you who joined us for our online Upstart Challenge Showcase event, thank you for a brilliant evening! It was a great opportunity to get together (albeit virtually) and celebrate the achievements of this year's Upstart Challenge finalists.

With 2021 just around the corner (we know, we can't quite believe it either!) it's only natural to look back and reflect on the past 12 months. Whilst we know it's been a tough year for some, the resilience of this year’s students is to be admired! Read on to learn more about tomorrow's young changemakers...

The Ballarat Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2020 is....

*drumroll please*... CONGRATULATIONS to Beth Wright, from Year 10 at Loreto College!

With environmental impact at the heart, Beth's business idea is Ecolo - a mobile app that scans barcodes on beauty products to provide information about the environmental impact of the product. Armed with this information, consumers can then make more conscious decisions about their purchases. Beth has won $1000 for her idea!

The 2020 Ballarat Upstart Challenge Finalists

Team Hydrozoid - Carmen Gallardo, Joshua Di Mieri and Zoe Daniel from Year 9, Bacchus Marsh Grammar
Big Idea: Hydrozoid is a renewable, clean energy device that generates electricity through the currents of water, aimed at providing rural communities in the developing world with easier access to power.

Team Hydrozoid also won the People's Choice Award - voted for by the audience during the Showcase - with a prize of $300!

Team Sports4Kidz - Mia Flynn and Zari Collin from Year 10, Mount Rowan Secondary College
Big Idea: A community-based physical activity program to be run using school facilities three or four times a week in order to remove the barriers to exercise to encourage young people to be more active - they already have interest from their school as willing participants in the scheme!

Team Rescue Watch - Eleanor Justin and Olivia Beechey from Year 6, Ballarat Grammar
Big Idea: A wearable GPS watch device worn by open water swimmers and surfers to help lifeguards locate them quicker if they were to get into trouble and reduce the number of drownings across Australia.

Upstart Programs for 2021

If these brilliant ideas and innovative young changemakers have lit the entrepreneurial fire in your belly, you'll be pleased to know you can register your interest to be involved next year!
We know many teachers will already be planning for next year and whether you're a Geelong or Ballarat school, registering for an Upstart curriculum mapped program gives you access to ready-to-go and engaging teacher-led resources - which is one thing you can tick off your to-do list.

Find out more and register your interest below. 👇

Ballarat Upstart Challenge 2021

We are thrilled to bring our flagship program, the Upstart Challenge, back for Ballarat schools in 2021! We know many teachers have already started planning for next year so now is a great time to register your school's interest.

Ballarat teachers will get access to our exclusive online learning portal that's packed full of ready-to-go, engaging lesson ideas and activities designed to be delivered to the whole class. Want to see what it's all about? Book your free ticket for our Live Online Showcase (using the link above).

If you're ready to join us in introducing entrepreneurship to your students, click to register your school's interest here.

*NEW* Upstart Program for Geelong

Teachers of Geelong - we've designed a program that's going to assist you in teaching innovative and engaging enterprise skills to your students, and that's mapped to the Australian curriculum.

Our exciting online program maintains our same immersive and hands-on learning methodologies, and has been designed for you, the teacher, to take your whole class on an entrepreneurial journey.

If you're ready to upskill your students for the jobs of tomorrow, register your school's interest here and we'll be in touch with more information very soon.

Some BIG thank you's....

We wouldn't be able to run our programs without the support and commitment from the Upstart Community. We want to say a BIG thank you to our teachers and school champions, our business mentors who generously gave their time to our student teams, our brilliant judging panel, our engaging Showcase MC - Jason Clarke, and of course our determined and innovative student finalists.

We'd also like to say another BIG thank you to our generous sponsors! Regional Development Victoria, Runway and Buninyong and District Community Branch of Bendigo Bank

To find out how you can get involved next year - whether that's as a mentor, a sponsor, an entrepreneur or even if you're not sure how you can help but would love the opportunity - drop us a line at info@upstarthq.com.au for a chat.

As always, we love hearing from you! Please let us know if you have news you'd like us to share with our network or if you have any questions, ideas, suggestions or general feedback about what you'd like to see from us, you can just hit "reply" to this email or drop us a line at info@upstarthq.com.au.

Stay safe, and keep virtually in touch!
The Upstart HQ Team

Proudly sponsored by:

As a registered charity, we rely on donations to help us inspire, educate and amplify tomorrow's changemakers to be tomorrow's job creators. We need your support - we target every contribution, big or small directly to our mission, we'd love you to join us! Support us here.

This newsletter was made with love by Upstart to be shared around with anyone! Upstart kickstarts tomorrow's changemakers through entrepreneurial education. Find out more here.

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