NSW's plan to support startups

A conversation between Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier, The Hon. Gabrielle Upton MP and David Shein, Our Innovation Fund Founder

Join us for an evening 'fireside chat' between Gabrielle Upton MP and David Shein, Founding Partner of Our Innovation Fund, which will explore how the NSW Government's new Action Plan will support NSW startups and scale-ups, particularly through its new Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and the new R&D Matchmaking Platform. David will also share his experiences within the startup ecosystem from a startup and venture capital perspective and you will have the opportunity to participate in a Q&A discussion.

Parliamentary Secretary to the NSW Premier, The Hon. Gabrielle Upton MP has been leading an Advisory Council, chaired by David Gonski AC, to accelerate research and development in NSW. On Monday 25 January, 2021, the NSW Premier launched the Turning ideas into jobs: Accelerating research and development in NSW Action Plan which focuses on translating more ideas into new industries - a priority of the NSW Government in 2021.

Speakers:

The Hon. Gabrielle Upton MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier

Gabrielle was re-elected for a third term as the Member for Vaucluse at the March 2019 NSW Election and was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier. Gabrielle previously served as Minister for the Environment, the first female NSW Attorney General, Minister for Family & Community Services and Minister for Sport & Recreation. As Parliamentary Secretary to the NSW Premier, Gabrielle has been tasked by the Premier to lead the recent initiative to accelerate R&D in NSW.

Gabrielle began as a banking and finance lawyer at Freehill, Hollingdale & Page and then worked in corporate finance at Deutsche Bank and Toronto Dominion Bank in New York. She served as Deputy Chancellor of the University of New South Wales from 2006 until 2009. Gabrielle has a BA LLB from the University of New South Wales, a MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

David Shein
Our Innovation Fund
Founding Partner

In June 1987, David, having recently migrated from South Africa, founded Com Tech Communications as a specialist supplier of networking and communications products. 14 years later, Com Tech was sold to Dimension Data at an enterprise value of over $1bil. At the time of sale, Com Tech employed over 1,400 people, had offices Australia wide and achieved revenues of $700 million with no external debt. David prides himself on the recognition that Com Tech achieved as regularly being voted as one of the leading companies to work for in Australia.

Since then, David has been actively involved in mentoring young management teams. David has been an investor and mentor to a number of startups, many of which have been successfully exited. These include ZipMoney, CalReply, Latam Autos, RangeMe, Pocketbook, Centric Wealth, MacromatiX and Holly Connects.

David serves on the Boards of some exciting Australian startups including cyber Security company Kasada, Advanced Navigation, a leader in positioning solutions from the sea bed to a satellite and Simpology, a fin-tech company providing disruptive home loan origination software to the Australian lending industry.

David is a Co Founder of Our Innovation Fund, an Early Stage Venture Capital Fund that invests in exciting Australian Startups as well as a founding partner in the Israeli Venture Capital enterprise, OurCrowd, the first Global Equity Based Crowd Funding Platform.

In addition to the Boards mentioned above, David currently serves as Non-Executive Chairman of MOQdigital, an ASX listed IT company specialising in Digital Transformation services.