Last week Slattery IT hosted Angel Connect - Tasmania. This follows on from the success of Angel Connect in other cities around Australia. Over 90 people attended the event at The Henry Jones Art Hotel on the Quay in Hobart. The program included sessions on:

• Meeting and attracting Angel Investors
• Understanding the expectations and motivations of Angels
• Doing the deal
• Working together
• Clever Angels and Active Investors
• Collaborating with other Investors

Attendees included:

• Entrepreneurs
• Employees of Australian ICT companies
• Venture Capitalists
• Incubators
• Angel Investors
• Research Facilities
• Universities
• Service Providers
• Government

It was a fantastic event and great credit goes to the team @ the Tasmanian Department of Economic Development and Tourism for having the vision to host and fund the event and Slattery IT for faultless execution.

In the picture above I am moderating a panel on 'Funding Strategy' with Martin Hosking (left), and Roger Allen (centre). Image courtesy of Slattery IT.

Slattery IT is hosting Angel Connect - Tasmania on Tuesday 28th October, 2008; from 12pm to 6pm. Following on from the success of Angel Connect in other cities around Australia this is the first time the event has been taken to Tassie. The event is designed to reveal everything you need to know about the process of Angel Investment. The Angel Connect program will include sessions on:

• Meeting and attracting Angel Investors
• Understanding the expectations and motivations of Angels
• Doing the deal
• Working together
• Clever Angels and Active Investors
• Collaborating with other Investors

Attendees will be given ample opportunity to network and meet potential partners, investors, mentors and friends. Attendees of Angel Connect will include:

• Entrepreneurs
• Employees of Australian ICT companies
• Venture Capitalists
• Incubators
• Angel Investors
• Research Facilities
• Universities
• Service Providers
• Government

DETAILS: Tuesday 28th October, 2008 from 12.00pm - 6.00pm at The Henry Jones Art Hotel, 25 Hunter Street, Hobart. Cost $220 inc. GST (50% discount for entrepreneurs and employees of public funded research institutions & start-ups) Register Online here or phone 1300 651 485

This week I received an email from Stephen Collins from Acid Labs. Steve has come to an arrangement with Dion Hinchcliffe's company to deliver their very successful and highly regarded Web 2.0 University Workshops in Australia and NZ.

The first ever Web 2.0 Exceutive Bootcamp in the Southern Hemisphere will be on 23 September as a pre-conference workshop at Web Directions South. Steve's announcement with pricing, location and registration details is here.

On Thursday 31st July 2008 Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research opened the new global headquarters for Windlab Systems.

The picture above shows Mr. Mark Sinclair, CEO - Windlab Systems (left) and Senator Carr (right) with the plaque celebrating the occasion. Image courtesy of Rohan Thomson.

Windlab Systems was formed in May 2003 with seed funding from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Epicorp.

Their inception can be traced back to the early 1960s when Australian scientists from CSIRO began groundbreaking research into the effects of wind flow over hills. This work culminated in the establishment of the Wind Energy Research Unit (WERU).

WERU's extensive experience in taking meteorological measurements, both in simulated atmospheric flows in wind tunnels and outside in the real world, enabled the development of a new suite of modelling tools - Raptor® and RaptorNL™ for predicting wind flow over topography, and WindScape® for regional wind mapping.

These new models quickly gained recognition, outperforming standard wind models developed in Europe. In 2002, they won a new technology award from the New South Wales Government, Australia. Windlab Systems was formed the following year to enable full commercialisation of the models. Founding staff included Raptor® developer, Keith Ayotte and Nathan Steggel, developer of WindScape®, supported by an experienced board of directors and management team.

Windlab Systems has continued to prosper as concern about climate change has prompted growth in renewable energy sources. The company now takes an active role in the development of wind farms, from site location and landowner engagement to wind-assessment activities throughout the development of the project.

The occasion marked a significant milestone in the on-going success of the company. The company has grown from 8 to 18 staff in the last year and has opened offices in North America. Blue Cove Ventures participated in Windlabs Series "A" investment round in July 2007.

During Senator Carr's speech he revealed that the Innovation Review has been extended by one month to allow time for the over 700 submissions to be reviewed and considered. It is hoped (by this author) that a replacement for the Commercial Ready programme will be created to fill the abyss left by its untimely demise.

The ACT Regional Technology Commercialisation Program has been designed to assist innovative companies commercialise and take their products to national and international markets. The program is fully funded by AusIndustry (company entry is free) and delivered by Pyksis ACT. Pyksis is now recruiting for the second program cycle after the very successful completion of the first cycle delivered in 2006 - 2008.

THE KEY SUBJECTS COVERED:

• MARKETING - who wants our new product or service?
• INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION - how do we own our new product or service?
• BUSINESS MODEL - what's the best way to go to market?
• THE TEAM - whom do we need, inside and outside the business?
• THE NUMBERS - how do we develop our forecasts and what funding we'll need?
• FUNDING - how do we get the money?

KEY DATES

• Applications in 8 August 2008
• The Explorer One-Day Diagnostic Workshops 15 August 2008 and 27 August 2008
• The Pioneer Eleven-Week Program & Mentoring Commencing 8 October 2008
• The Graduation Showcase 11 December 2008

HOW TO APPLY

Places in the program are limited to 25 for One-Day workshops and 12 for the eleven-week program. You are invited to apply for the program by completing the application form available at www.pyksis.com (Programs & Service - ATCP) and emailing it to robert.holgate@pyksis.com

Please contact Robert Holgate, Pyksis for further information regarding the Program.

ROBERT HOLGATE PYKSIS ACT P 6291 4703 F 6291 4703 M 0407 910 740 E robert.holgate@pyksis.com www.pyksis.com.au

John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist Newspaper, is speaking on "Globalisation – how it works and where it's headed" at the Law Theatre, ANU, on Wednesday 18th June from 10:30 am to 11:30 (morning tea from 10:00).

John Micklethwait is one of the world's foremost authorities on globalisation and a leading proponent of its positive impact and potential. He is the co-author/co-editor of A Future Perfect: The Challenge and Promise of Globalisation.

Globalisation is one of the most hotly debated topics of recent times, the volume of comment scarcely keeping pace with the amount of disinformation. In this public lecture, one of the world's foremost authorities will dispel many of the myths and analyse what it actually is, how it actually works, and where this dramatic transformation of economic, social and political thinking is taking us.

Register here.

mHits is featured this week on New Inventors on the ABC. mHITs is an advanced mobile commerce (m-commerce) platform which enables you to make payments to anyone with a mobile phone by SMS text message.

Harold Dimpel the founder of mHits, is an inspiring and resilient entrepreneur and this exposure is well deserved. The show airs @ 8pm on Wednesday 4th June @ 8pm on ABC1. If you miss the episode, you can watch it online at New Inventors.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of sitting in on Jason Calacanis' presentation @ Transaction 2.0. He talked about the importance of hiring and retaining the best people. He focussed on the drag on an organisation by poor and average people.

An organisations pace and productivity is significantly impacted by keeping the poor performers around. Get rid of the deadwood early and take your time to hire the best and brightest.

The material he presented could easily be rolled into a best seller so I'm not going to reveal more. If you get chance to see him speak he is engaging and entertaining. Plug in here.

I got a late call up last week to one of the panel discussions at Transaction 2.0. The panel is titled "The Growth Cycle" and runs from 11:40am - 12:20pm on Thursday 22nd May @ CeBit taking place at the Convention Centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney.

I will be joined on the panel by Michael McGoogan, Managing Director, Aussie HQ, Tony McGrath, CIO, eWay and Ivan Kaye, from Business Strategies International.

The conference program is excellent. Come on down and join us. Register here.

I've just finished viewing an excellent interview with Marc Andreesen. The interview was conducted at Startup School 08 which took place earlier this month.

Marc provides a few nuggets, the key one being "be so good they cant ignore you" - a quote he references from Steve Martin.

I particularly liked the annotated video format that was provided by Omnisio. Go to the video and then click on the 'highlights' button in the right hand frame. It breaks out the key discussion topics from the video and allows you to see the question and jump straight to it. Very neat!

Other videos worth a look include this from Paul Graham.

The inaugral Tech Transfer Investing & IP Spinouts conference is taking place on May 27th & 28th in Sydney at the Amora Hotel. The conference will build a bridge and unite 150+ university tech transfer officers, corporate R&D labs, government labs together with venture capital and private equity investors.

The conference is focused on starting, building and financing technology based spinouts from universities, government labs and corporations. The event unites tech transfer executives and venture capitalists and corporations to have an open and honest dialogue on term structures and deal partnerships. The conference provides best practices on spinning out companies from labs and preparing them for seed and early stage financing from angel investors, venture capitalists and corporations.

I am a participating in a panel discussion on "Assessing and valuing early stage technology & commercialisation viability" taking place on May 27 @ 11am. The panel will cover issues including:

• Prospecting, connecting, monitoring, motivating
• Screening and validating
• Viable strategies and valuation basis
• Creating value in the go and no-go cases
• Comparisons with approaches, metrics and benchmarks locally and overseas

Key Media has assembled a great list of speakers - registration prices and details can be found here.