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2022 Innovate with nbn® Grants Program: the winners

5-minute read

Recognising broadband-enabled bright business ideas from across regional Australia, we reveal the winners of the 2022 Innovate with nbn Grants Program.


At nbn, we’re always looking ahead – investing in innovation today so Australians are ready for tomorrow.

In line with this commitment, I’m delighted to share with you the winners of the 2022 Innovate with nbn Grants Program.


About the program


Now in its third year, the Innovate with nbn Grants Program attracted a record number of entrants from across Australia.

Designed to help regional businesses transform their ideas into game changing products and services, it was exciting to see the extremely high calibre of entrants that did just that.

Run in partnership with the Regional Australia Institute (RAI), the Innovate with nbn Grants Program is part of nbn’s commitment to lift the digital capability of Australia.



Designed to help regional businesses transform their ideas into game changing products and services, it was exciting to see the extremely high calibre of entrants that did just that.


For the first time following the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s winners gathered in person at a gala event in Canberra (Ngunnawal Country) to accept their awards.

Grants of $15,000 were allocated to innovative businesses enabled by the nbn network across seven categories: Agriculture, Arts, Education, Health, Indigenous Business, Tourism, and Women in Regional Business.

An overall Innovate with nbn Champion was also awarded an additional $20,000 grant to help them take their broadband-enabled idea to the next level.


The winners


Please join us in congratulating this year’s winners:




Agriculture and overall Innovate with nbn Champion


TerraLab

Harley Schinagl, Director and Principal Consultant at TerraLabs
Harley Schinagl, Director and Principal Consultant at TerraLab


Victorian based geospatial and environmental consulting business, TerraLab, is the brains behind STA logger, an automated weed mapping attachment that can be fixed to equipment used to apply herbicide.

TerraLab owner and principal consultant Harley Schinagl hopes to adapt the existing solution to enable it to map tree planting locations, providing users with sophisticated land management data recording, analysis and decision-making abilities.


How the Innovate with nbn Grant will be used


Awarded $15,000 as Agriculture category winner and an additional $20,000 as the overall Innovate with nbn Champion, the Innovate with nbn Grant will be used to fund further testing and development of STA logger to adapt the product to tree planting applications, as well as an initial marketing push to drive sales.


Arts


Radio Margaret River Inc



Pip Mattiske, Programming Director at Margaret River Radio


Australia’s first community-oriented internet radio station, Western Australia (WA) based Radio Margaret River (Noongar Country) was launched in 2020 by a group of like-minded and passionate individuals who saw the digital platform’s potential to connect with their community.

Streaming content through its own app to ensure the approximate 10,000 listeners a month have easy access to programming, the not-for-profit broadcaster’s guiding vision is ‘Local Pulse, Global Beat’ supported by its purpose to ‘connect, inform, enrich, enliven and entertain’ the local community.


How the Innovate with nbn Grant will be used


Radio Margaret River plans to use the Innovate with nbn Grant to help drive an increase in listeners, volunteers and subscribers.


Education


iClick2Learn



Natalie Bramble, CEO and Co-Founder at iClick2Learn
Natalie Bramble, CEO and Co-Founder at iClick2Learn


A social enterprise, iClick2Learn prides itself on helping not-for-profit organisations, volunteers and community groups to overcome access and affordability hurdles preventing them from reaping the benefits of sector specific training.

Located in New South Wales, iClick2Learn is committed to ‘helping the helpers’ by ensuring the people that serve our communities can upskill through areas such as online workshops, fundraising and mentoring.


How the Innovate with nbn Grant will be used


iClick2Learn will use its grant money to develop two multilingual online courses, which it hopes will increase opportunities for small regional organisations to win grants and tenders. This will be supported by access to its hour-long grant writing Q&A sessions.


Health


Connect Paediatric Therapy Services



The Connect Paediatric Therapy Services team


Connect Paediatric Therapy Services (Connect PTS) provides allied and mental health support ranging from speech pathology and physiotherapy to specialist literacy programs for children and young people living in rural and remote northwest WA.

Originally established in the Pilbara town of Karratha (Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi Country), as its footprint has grown, Connect PTS has increasingly turned to digital solutions – such as telehealth – to support clients separated by thousands of kilometres in locations including Carnarvon, Port Hedland and Christmas Island.


How the Innovate with nbn Grant will be used


The Innovate with nbn Grant will be used to help fund Connect Paediatric Therapy Services’ digital expansion project, which aims to increase service capability as well as expand to meet the needs of more clients in new areas.



Indigenous Business


The Cultural Intelligence Project



Cara (left) and Adele Peek, Co-Founders at The Cultural Intelligence Project


Based in Broome, WA, The Cultural Intelligence Project (TCIP) is an Indigenous business behind Make It Happen HQ, a female driven innovation hub and think tank designed to help First Nations entrepreneurs in the remote Kimberly region on the road to success.

TCIP founders Adele and Cara Peek say Make It Happen HQ aims to open doors for First Nations entrepreneurs such as themselves to enable them to take their work, ideas and business to the next level.


How the Innovate with nbn Grant will be used


The Innovate with nbn Grant will be used to help Make It Happen HQ expand operations from a hybrid platform model to include a soon-to-be-opened physical co-working space in Broome (Yawuru Country) aimed at supporting and maximising the educational opportunities and productivity of First Nations entrepreneurs and businesses in the region.


Tourism


Busselton Jetty





At 1.841 kilometres long, the 157-year-old heritage listed Busselton Jetty in Western Australia’s Busselton (Wadandi Country), 230km south of Perth, is the longest timber piled jetty in the southern hemisphere.

Boasting an artificial reef, jetty visitors can view more than 300 unique marine species from eight metres below the surface without getting wet, in the world’s largest natural underwater observatory.

Operated by a not-for-profit community organisation, all proceeds from ticket sales go towards the jetty’s maintenance and conservation.


How the Innovate with nbn Grant will be used


The Innovate with nbn Grant will contribute to the development and launch of a new educational program to enable school students across the nation unable to travel to the jetty to participate in immersive, interactive virtual tours of the Underwater Observatory and planned Marine Discovery Centre.


Women in Regional Business


Vennu



Suzanne Campbell, CEO and Founder at Vennu


Describing itself as an easy-to-use digital marketplace, Vennu connects community spaces, such as surf life-saving clubs and church halls, with those who want to hire them.

Based in New South Wales, founder and CEO Suzanne Campbell takes pride in Vennu’s ability to unlock idle and spare capacity for hire, addressing unmet demand in regional Australia by enabling anyone to find and book local and affordable spaces simply and in one place.


How the Innovate with nbn Grant will be used


Vennu plans to use its Innovate with nbn Grant to work with regional organisations across Australia to streamline its processes, expand the number of listings on its platform, produce guides to help community space managers, and increase awareness of community spaces as great locations to get together for business and pleasure.


Thank you and congratulations


Congratulations once again to all our winners and a sincere thanks to everyone who took the time to participate in the 2022 Innovate with nbn Grants Program.

I would particularly like to call out the dedication of our judging panel, who faced the challenging task of choosing each of the category winners from an extraordinarily strong field of applicants.

It is yet again another example of the extraordinary level of innovation and talent that’s alive and well in regional, rural and remote Australia.



Header image: 2022 Innovate with nbn Agriculture winner and overall Champion, TerraLab



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