Creating communities of innovation

Image Credit: City of Melbourne / That Startup Show / Photographer Wren Steiner

Presentation by Colin Graham focusing on regional innovation at the Regional Futures Conference organised by CQUniversity and held in Rockhampton can now be viewed on Youtube, click here to view.

Colin Graham, founder of Causeway Innovation, argues that regional centres should avoid the hype of becoming the ‘next Silicon Valley’ and use the innovation boom to grow value from their existing or potential areas of economic strength.

Colin highlights that there are almost daily headlines identifying towns from ‘Berlin to Bundaberg’ as the next Silicon Valley, but he warned the key to success for regional cities was not in attempting to mimick the United States technology hub.

He explains that it’s very easy for everyone to be saying ‘we’re going to be the next Silicon Valley’, but the reality is Silicon Valley is at least 70 years ahead and it’s the epicenter of entrepreneurship globally.

Regions and cities have to find their own unique way to plug into the world economy and create their own innovation ecosystems locally. To do this they need to focus on their own identity and build innovation ecosystems which support startups, scaleups and collaboration between existing businesses.

Full presentation can be viewed on Youtube