UniSquare.me team from left: James Higgie, Andrew Loh, David Mah, Nigel Ang, Michael Qiu

UniSquare.me team from left: James Higgie, Andrew Loh, David Mah, Nigel Ang, Michael Qiu

A new program supporting staff, students and alumni to translate ideas into commercial reality has been launched at The University of Melbourne.

The Melbourne Accelerator Program (MAP) nurtures the passion for entrepreneurship, accelerating the journey from idea to market.

The Melbourne School of Engineering (MSE) joins only a handful of leading institutions globally providing an entrepreneurial program to its staff, students and alumni.

MAP aims to:

  • help entrepreneurs in the Melbourne School of Engineering community maximise their chances of success through access to resources and mentoring
  • accelerate the progress of participants’ start-ups
  • and create a culture of entrepreneurship at the University of Melbourne.

Dean of the Melbourne School of Engineering Professor Iven Mareels said that MAP would help translate ideas into practice and increase opportunities for staff, students and alumni to develop successful entrepreneurial careers.

“Engineering is all about investing in new ways of doings things and the MAP program offers a practical way for ideas to develop into potentially commercial ventures,” he said.

MAP winners
From thirty-two aspiring teams, four have been selected to receive Entrepreneurial Fellowships, mentoring and coaching support for their start-up ventures. The four Start-up Teams consist of 12 participants, who come from a variety of backgrounds including engineering students and alumni and external participants. A steering committee will provide governance of MAP through 2012 to develop the program and to evaluate performance at its conclusion in November.

VenueMob: an Internet venue booking system.
Team members of VenueMob are: Ying Wang (current Melbourne University student); Devrim Van Dijk (current Master of Engineering student); James Giang (Business Analyst, Telstra); David Wei (Business Development Manager, Project Leader and Head of Training, Groupon Australia and NZ). VenueMob is an Internet booking system that will streamline venue bookings. This tool will enable venue owners to market and fully utilise their function spaces and function organisers to compare venues and make the right venue booking quickly and easily.

Remote Area Power System: an innovative power system for rural and remote areas.
Braden Kidd completed an Electrical Engineering degree with Honours in 2008, and is a current student in the Master of Energy Systems program. The aim of his Start-up is to design a Remote Area Power System that will enable clients in rural and remote areas to get the most effective use from their available energy supply, whether it be off-grid alternative energy sources, single wire earth return or a combination of both.

UniSquare.me: An Internet social platform for University students.
Team Members are: David Mah (current Master of Engineering (Electrical) student); Nigel Ang (current Master of Engineering (Electrical) student); Andrew Loh (Business Consultant, BCom/Law graduate); Michael Qiu (Entrepreneur, Bachelor of Medical Science and MB BS graduate). Unisquare.me is a next-generation online social platform for university students aimed at improving students’ experience of going to university, by sharing relevant information. UniSquare.me will transform the student experience by bringing the most important things to students during their university life on to a single online platform that is easy to organise and personalise. From events and student clubs to where to go and who to meet, UniSquare.me has it covered.

121cast: An interactive Internet radio service.
Team members are: Long Zheng (Entrepreneur and Software Designer); Andrew Armstrong (Bachelor of Information Systems graduate, Web Application and Database Developer); Edward Hooper (Bachelor of Information Systems graduate, Entrepreneur, and former Strategy Analyst, Groupon). 121cast is a free, personalised, interactive radio station that reads your emails, calendar, news, weather and social media, as well as playing music, podcasts etc. The stream mixes a combination of text content converted to speech and traditional produced audio content (such as radio, music etc.) customised to your needs and can be used on a variety of devices such as: mobile apps for phones; tablets; desktop web browsers; and embedded devices such as internet connected car stereo or home entertainment systems. With this mobile app, you can save time, be kept up-to-date and entertained when getting ready in the morning, driving to work and whenever you cannot and do not want to stare at a screen.