A Mount Gambier-designed App proposal, which aims to get South Australians moving by connecting them with local sports, is inspiring a whole new generation of entrepreneurs.
The ‘ActiveSA’ App concept developed by local teenagers Brendan Bachmann, Caleb Bachmann and Jess Leaver recently earned the city exclusive access to a $10,000 New Venture Institute (NVI) training program that was delivered to a group of budding entrepreneurs at Mount Gambier Library in January.
“The one-day NVI workshop was the trio’s prize to share with the community after taking out multiple categories in the 2016 Unleashed Open Data Competition,” said Community Engagement Coordinator, Kristi Leamey.
NVI program participants were taken through the first stages of launching a start-up business, from identifying a problem that needs to be addressed or a niche market opportunity to finding a way to accurately meet that need.
“It’s quite broad, because entrepreneurial businesses can be selling anything from an idea to a product,” said 19-year-old, Brendan Bachmann.
“It was also quite intense; the facilitators condensed something that normally takes 10 weeks into five or six hours, but it was definitely a positive experience and something that we all got a lot out of.”
The workshop may just be the kick-start needed to get the ‘ActiveSA’ App off the ground.
Developed during the GovHack data ‘hackathon’ held simultaneously over a single weekend late last year across Australia and New Zealand, participants were asked to come up with new ideas about making data more accessible to the public.
‘ActiveSA’ is designed as a one-stop-shop linking people to local sporting events, clubs and facilities in South Australia, drawing from data released by SA Government agencies and local councils.
“We make it easy for you – simply choose the level of sport you want, choose your location and type of sport, and then the App will bring you all of the local sports relevant to you,” Brendan explains in the three-minute video developed as part of their entry.
Mount Gambier is SA’s only hosting ‘Node Venue’ for the competition outside of Adelaide, with the ‘ActiveSA’ App concept developed during a 46-hour ‘hackathon’ at Mount Gambier Library in July.
“The city has been involved in Unleashed for the past three years and we see this as a real opportunity to encourage innovation and community capacity building,” said Ms Leamey.
The record nine teams and individuals who represented Mount Gambier in 2016 topped the state in five categories, with the ‘ActiveSA’ developers winning the ‘Youth Mount Gambier’ category and the state-based ‘Connecting Across SA’ category before going on to collect the major ‘Youth State Champion’ award. In 2015, Mount Gambier brother and sister team Anesu & Yimbiso Chiodze proudly took out the Best Youth Team Award at the National Awards, while in the 2014, local competitors ‘Trent and Mitch’s Team’ took home $4000 in cash and hardware after winning at both regional and state level.
