Today is May 8. Or as some of you know it as: M8 Day. Something uniquely Australian.
So, it seemed fitting to announce a new venture Seeds today, a school / publication / events (& even storytelling projects studio) focused firmly on education and lessons from ANZ Tech Builders, for those so entrepreneurially inclined. Yes, there is AI, if you must know.
Specifically launched on M8 Day, with Melbourne the home of said classroom, I should have said, beginning at Sanders Place Impact Hub in Richmond.
A little while ago, I had some choice words in a Startup Daily article about some shortcomings of the Melbourne innovation ecosystem in particular.
And whilst that opinion was not shared by all and sundry, no doubt it raised some more interesting conversations IRL and in the DMs, about the importance of events, of physical spaces, of investment pathways, and some comparisons of what Melbourne looked like – and how the ecosystem flowed – in a, if you will, pre-COVID era as opposed to a post-COVID era.
This led to me speaking on a debate of sorts alongside a few well-known identities in the Victorian startup ecosystem. Paul Naphtali of Rampersand was one of them who made a specific and correct point, which is that Melburnians keep talking about COVID on and on, inherently waiting for a return to some previous glories I guess?
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A lot of the rest of the country, nay, the world, have moved on, and are either continuing to build, or building something new entirely. WA for example, has quite a bit going on, and some pretty remarkable output of late when it comes to innovation.
What’s missing
But there has been one piece that has been missing from all the conversations about Melbourne that I’ve noticed. And perhaps my lived experience in this ecosystem has an element of bias attached to it.
But I’m not wrong, and it’s something that also used to be a key part of a thriving Melbourne startup ecosystem.
That would be: a location that delivers current tech skills education, consistently. Not, online. IRL.
Education c/o an industry practitioner, standing right in front of you, helping you accelerate your knowledge and output, right there in the moment. And not someone shilling their shitty lead-gen webinar for you to add to your Gmail pile-of-shame and “eventually get to watching it.”
When we reference education as an aspect of the ecosystem, we often talk about the universities, but in a manner of referencing their research commercialisation aptitude primarily.
What we don’t talk about is University of Melbourne onboarding 300 students at once to get moving with Claude Code and overhaul their capacity for the AI to take over their rote tasks, and equip them for the future world of work. Because that onboarding exercise doesn’t exist.
Pieces of content here and there referencing the key ingredients of an ecosystem such as an innovation hub, or well-known co-working locations, or the universities commercialising research, or the community groups, or some events, or a main conference are always included.
Back to school, the right way
But a tech school delivering the most current skills with a curriculum that updates overnight with the latest releases thanks to practitioners that live and breathe this? It needs to exist in Melbourne, but is commonly overlooked in those ecosystem maps.
Education locations act as beacons for people who choose to congregate around other learners and learn from industry professionals. People perhaps not as interested in another lazy panel discussion with a VC spruiking ‘taste as the paradigm’ or a mixer to sink booze and conveniently forget some depressing tendencies of this industry.
When I began my career in tech leading partnerships for global provider General Assembly, we were a breeding ground for a number of people to upskill, who would find themselves into what would become senior positions today, in UX, Product Management, Web Development (Front and Back-end), Marketing, Data, and any number of other disciplines related to Tech.
We also used to run a lot of events at General Assembly. Sure, we loved a good party too.
But what we did day in and day out was produce bootcamps, masterclasses, part-time and full-time courses. That produced talent.
Talent that saw important metrics for Full-Time Courses eventuate: 99.1 % of graduates landing a role within 90 days.
Roles at companies such as Culture Amp, Envato, REA Group, Vinomofo, Seek, Car Sales, Canva, Atlassian, Zendesk, Xero,, MYOB…the list goes on.
Talent at a mid-weight level – often career changers with decent experience behind them already – who were easy to engage with, and many of whom getting hired on the spot towards the completion of their full-time courses. That talent access has been missing for quite some time.
For those reading wondering if education is important, then answer this for yourself, truthfully:
If you say you’re a daily Claude user, is that a chatbot or agents set up running if-this-then-that scenarios?
How have you yourself implemented Ai into your workflow to dramatically improve the output? And if you got someone else to do that, why?
Planting the seeds
And why haven’t you done this yet, if the internet is at your fingertips, and all the answers are on there?
Because our brains are fried from option paralysis that’s why, and for many of us, we need someone to show us the way and say “it’s gonna be ok.”
The stats for online education are sobering:
Online self-guided MOOCs with asynchronous learning have a roughly 13% completion rate, and that’s being generous.
Longer online async courses drop even more. 8% is about right, but can double or triple with incentives.
Moving to online cohort-based learning, that sits around 70% completion rate.
In-person cohort-based learning sits much higher: a 80% to 90% end of the market completion rate.
The point I’m trying to make here is that we’ve somehow lost some of our value for in-person education.
But there are many who need this, and don’t need another self-servicing webinar delivered to their overflowing inbox.
There are many who want to teach also. To impart the years of experience they have built up to some rabid learners.
Melbourne – and Australia – does have world-class builders, after all. They just need to be given an excuse to teach, care of a home that delivers that, and some curatorial nous on what good learning looks and sounds like.
So, again, why deliver Seeds in market, starting with Melbourne?
Well also, my Father has been teaching for 40+ years. I don’t think he knows what an AI is, but I’m proud of him.
And I’m proud to take this next step towards building a great culture of education and curation within technology circles, for Melbourne, and who knows where in Australia next.
Always please remember to “Seeds the Day.”
- Garry Williams is the founder of Group Group, a specialist advisory and storytelling curation hybrid, focussed on the overlap between technology and culture. He just launched Seeds.
