Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No generation has exclusive rights to good ideas. No particular age bracket owns entrepreneurship or innovation. Young Australians have great ideas but the challenge they have is commercialising those great ideas. Young Australians face three particular challenges if they do want to start up their own business and turn their idea into a reality. No 1: they don't have business experience. No. 2: they lack a business network. No 3: they lack the capital—the money to get going. That is why over five years ago, on the Sunshine Coast—Australia's most entrepreneurial region—we started a not-for-profit group called Generation Innovation that wraps those needs around young 15 to 25-year-olds—young people who want to have a go and who want to take an idea to market. We do that in a way that brings together business executives who are working on the Sunny Coast—marketing gurus. We wrap that support base around the young people. We let them thrive and we let their ideas move forward. We crowdfund locally for these groups. I'm delighted to announce to this parliament that the 2019 GI Challenge winner was Zariah Lamont with her fantastic new enterprise called X&O Media. Let the young people continue to thrive.