International Women's Day is coming up quickly, and we're excited to announce that we are hosting a panel discussion between eight incredible world-changing women on Friday the 6th March.

Spend your lunch hour being inspired by Mellonie, Simone, Sasha, Jenna, Carola, Anna, Deb, & Patricia. Whether building tech products, coaching young women, advocating for equality and diversity, solving isolation and loneliness for vulnerable people, creating opportunities for refugee communities, or improving our environmental impact - these women are all using their unique skills and voices to make the world a better place.

Your ticket includes networking over a catered lunch, which will be served from 12pm - followed by the panel discussion from 12.30pm until around 1.30pm.

About the Moderator

Mellonie Francis

Mellonie Francis, CEO of Rareiio, one of the few females running a IT agency in Sydney! She started out as a corporate banker with no tech background. After building her first app, she took on the challenge and learned tech and delivered sophisticated marketplace apps, innovative eCommerce solutions and custom CRM tools to small & medium businesses.

She says tech is a mindset, anyone can learn tech. She loves meeting people who want to build and scale innovative digital products. She says “there is nothing more satisfying than seeing the impact the right software can have on an industry when designed, developed and marketed correctly“. Mellonie created Rareiio to support talented Non-Tech Founders to build disruptive technology, fast, cost-effectively and as painlessly as possible. In a short-time, Rareiio has grown to a 16-person team with offices in Sydney and Lahore and has built dozens of digital products for clients in Australia and the USA!

About the Panellists

Simone Amelia Jordan

Simone Amelia Jordan is a journalist, editor and host, with 20 years experience in Australia and the United States. She's the co-creator and co-host of The Ladies Room, Australia's first talk show led by culturally diverse women, launching International Women's Day 2020.

Simone has held senior positions at Channel 10, The Source Magazine, Daily Mail, SiriusXM Radio and she founded and edited Australia's most successful Hip-Hop/R&B magazine, Urban Hitz, after graduating from University of Technology, Sydney.

Simone's celebrity interviews on YouTube have over 10 million views and she was chosen as one of five women in the world to design a signature sneaker for Reebok Classics’ “Classic Beat” campaign in October 2012.

Simone has worked across print, radio, TV and digital arms of media and been an active mentor for young women since the beginning of her career.

Sasha Sarago

Sasha Sarago is the Editor and Founder of Ascension — Australia’s first
digital lifestyle platform for women of colour, and co-creator for The
Ladies Room Australia’s first talk show led by culturally diverse women. A tireless advocate, Sasha raises awareness around colourism, identity
and increased equity and diversity in the media and lifestyle sectors.

Sasha has appeared on NITV Awaken, SBS World News, ABC News Breakfast,
in Frankie Magazine and has written for The Guardian and SBS Voices.
Sasha has also written and directed documentaries Too Pretty To Be
Aboriginal and InsideOUT which were featured at Melbourne Women’s Film
Festival 2020.

Jenna Leo

Jenna is the Co-Founder of Home Care Heroes, a high growth tech startup solving isolation, loneliness and independence for vulnerable people. They are changing what it means to be a carer and who a carer is by activating everyday people to provide quality and affordable companionship and non-medical services to people in need.

She left her corporate career to follow her passion to solve this problem, and over the last 4 years she has grown her team to 10 people while bootstrapped and attracted a dedicated community of over 12,000 Heroes. She has been recognised as a Female Founder to watch, a finalist Women's Agenda Setter, an AMP Tomorrow maker and an active member of the Sydney Startup community.

Carola Jonas

Carola is the CEO and Co-Founder of Everty, an electric vehicle charging network and charging station management software solution. Everty works with EV owners, businesses, utilities and other organisations to increase the uptake of EVs and making EV ownership and use easier. Carola is also a board member of the Electric Vehicle Council Australia working with industry partners to increase EV uptake in Australia.

Carola has previously worked as a sustainability and marketing consultant with brands like Enphase Energy to bring storage solutions, microinverters and smart software to market and assisted EnergyLab, the first clean energy accelerator in Australia, to build and grow a vibrant start-up community of clean-tech companies and female entrepreneurs.

Carola has a background in working for NGOs, multinational corporations and Government. She has worked for household names such as Climate Friendly, NABERS (Office of Environment and Heritage), Transparency International and DB Schenker. Carola has been able to combine her marketing and sustainability skills to positively affect communities and organisations in Australia and overseas.

Anna Robson

Anna Robson is a Social Entrepreneur who specialises in designing innovative programs to harness the strengths and improve the well-being of people. Formerly trained in Sports Coaching and Management at the University of Canberra and then in coding at the Coder Factory, Anna has combined her people skills and technical expertise to develop innovative programs for organisations such as the Canberra Raiders, Queensland Police and Save the Children.

Anna also has extensive first-hand experience working with marginalised people, particularly refugees, in settings such as India, South Korea and Nauru. Her experience working on Nauru led her to meet her co-founder Nirary Dacho, a Syrian refugee with a tech background at a Techfugees hackathon in 2015 and start Refugee Talent. They have built it into a social enterprise using a technology employment platform to match refugees with employment opportunities across Australia. They also partner with Talent Beyond Boundaries to bring refugees still displaced in Jordan and Lebanon and move them to Australia and NZ matched with a job opportunity prior to arriving.

Patricia Kaziro

Patricia Kaziro is a Master Coach and Business Mentor, who gives women the knowledge and tools to create wealth and leave a legacy via social impact. Patricia started her business Radiate Coaching to help women reach their business dreams and goals faster through strategic planning and raising their visibility in business and life, essentially cultivating the confidence to take their message to the world.

Leaving a legacy is about making social impact a core part of your business and creating a sustainable business that protects our planet. Patricia loves to shine a light on undiscovered pathways for people to move towards aligning their passion for business with their purpose and the issues they care about. Patricia offers business strategy coaching and an online academy for impact entrepreneurs, innerCIRCLE6.

On International Women's Day 2020, as we celebrate #Eachforequal and I am Generation Equal: Realizing Women’s Rights, Patricia offers from experience insights into the impact being made by the rise of diverse women, including women of colour, in entrepreneurship in Australia and globally. She can highlight what progress are we making towards women’s rights and gender balance in Australia in 2020 via entrepreneurship and what more needs to be done.

Deborah Fairfull

Deborah Fairfull is inspired by the positive impact of personal growth, combined with education, technology and community. As a result, she founded Blisspot, the online experiential wellness and marketplace, transforming everyday lives through education, sharing and connection. Blisspot provides focuses on mental and emotional wellbeing to support people to overcome stress, and live in a state of wellness and happiness.

Deborah is committed to the ongoing improvement of the world we live in and believes in the power of each individual. She has a simple, succinct and practical approach to raising the awareness, around the importance of mental and emotional health. She believes in the power of “feminine” principles, such as love, caring and intuition, that help to evolve business in positive ways. Deborah understands the importance of women collaborating and supporting each others success, in this changing world. Women's unique skills and insights are much needed, together with men's life-enhancing qualities, to take the world forward.

Much of the ethical consumerism, sustainable products and fair trade movements have been initiated by women. Women’s natural caring and sense of responsibility make women a powerful force for social good. Women strengths include communication, bringing people together and developing networks. Women often engage in business effectively in a way that is personal, empowering and nurturing—resulting in businesses grounded in purpose and passion. Deborah believes that life-enhancing businesses can have a flow on effect to the world, that is profound and positive.

Deborah is a passionate entrepreneur now, on her third start-up, having achieved successful sales of her two prior businesses. As a former winner of the Australian Capital Territory Business Woman of the Year Award, the ACT Chief Minister’s Award for Innovation, and the founder of award winning businesses Brave Design Group and Eatsmart Food, Deborah enjoys continued success as an industry spokesperson and business leader.

About Fishburners

Fishburners is much more than a coworking space. We are a not for profit, passionate community of 300+ scalable tech startups that only exists thanks to our amazing sponsors - Google for Startups, UTS, Chartered Accountants, and Jobs for NSW. We are dedicated to inspiring and helping startups get started, grow and succeed. Our goal is to make the hardest thing you’ve ever done easier!

We do this through our different memberships which provide the facilities, resources, learning and development, mentoring, and connections that you need for your idea to come to life and flourish. We also open our doors and host some of the largest, regular events in the Australian startup ecosystem, including our weekly lunchtime learning workshops, and Shark Tank-style, Friday night pitches. Member or not, you're welcome to attend and/or get involved! Any questions about memberships or events, please feel free to email events@fishburners.org.

Details

Please head up to our event space on L2 of the Sydney Startup Hub.