Flying Cars. Virtual Reality. Startups. Investors. Disruptors. This is MYRIAD.
Check out this video I made of my experience:
[vimeo 272542451]
Many of us don’t realise how lucky we are to live in Queensland, a place that is fast becoming the innovation capital of Australia.
Once a year, Myriad gathers some of the worlds most influential thinkers, entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs and game changes to our hometown, Brisbane.
This year, things were shaken when Myriad Air, a chartered plane of 360+ Silicon Valley natives were flown directly from San Francisco to Brisbane. Can you imagine what went down on that flight? I know I wish I could have been a fly on the wall.
Next, QUT created the Myriad Mates program, where QUT students were paired with some of our new friends from SFO (aka VIP speakers).
The aim of the program was to help students network with some of the brightest minds in the industry, connect with other like-minded students and experience the festival from a unique, backstage perspective
I was paired with Kelly Watkins, the VP of global marketing for Slack. Slack is a team collaboration tool that you’ve probably used for group projects, at work or seen some of their brilliant ads in magazines or on social media!
Kelly and I got to hang out before her Fireside chat on day one of the event and talked about marketing, business, travel, and life!
For the rest of the event, I got front row seats to some of the coolest presentations in town, like Jodie Fox who is the CEO of Shoes of Prey, an online custom shoe store and Jeremy Bloom an Olympian, NFL player, and marketing tech guru.
Downstairs at the event was a garage filled with startups, flying cars, 3-D printers, electric skateboards and more! Think: Tesla, Substation33, Evolve Skateboards & Advance Queensland.
My biggest takeaways from the event were:
- Build software for humans – use technology as an enabler for human connection (Kelly Watkins, Slack).
- Don’t let expertise get in the way of a good idea (Jodie Fox, Shoes of Prey).
- The fastest way to go backward is to stand still (Taryn Williams, The Right Fit).
Thanks to the QUT Business School for this opportunity, and for anyone out there who is keen to make the most of their time at university: keep in the loop of all the cool events going on and put your hand up if its something you’re interested in! You never know what you could get yourself into…
