For many years, social impact investment’ was seen as code for a money-losing cost sink however today technology is making it possible to grow a business around responsible innovation that also provides good returns, attractive to investors.
For three years, Curtin University and West Tech Fest have partnered with the global Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) which is the world’s largest competition for investable commercial ventures that provide a positive impact on the planet.
The stakeholders all identified this as an emerging opportunity for Australia and the world.
Extreme Tech Challenge co-founder Bill Tai is a legendary investor in high-growth startups including Perth’s own CANVA and also Adjunct Professor of Innovation & Economic Development at Curtin University.
He says the domains of commercial enterprise and sustainability are finally overlapping and that intersection is creating a flashpoint in market valuation and market traction like never before seen, ever historically.
“The capital markets today recognize that unless something is done that's good for this planet, this planet may not exist, so there is an over-sized reward going to entrepreneurs trying to drive these fundamental structural changes."
Australian startups have done very well in the XTC competition with global finalists including MaxMine, Swoop Aero, Bitwise Agronomy, MicroTau, Mining Process Solutions.
In 2021 Hillridge Technologies was the Global Co-Winner of XTC with a blockchain based insurance solution. Bondi Bio, which leverages advanced computing to bioengineer bacteria to deliver sequestration biofactories for food ingredients, won the UN World Food Forum Innovation Competition led by XTC, while Quintessence Labs was an XTC finalist by providing cybersecurity for quantum computing.
XTC co-founder, founding managing partner at Walden Catalyst Ventures and former corporate president and chief strategy officer of Samsung Electronics Young Sohn says these are great examples of IT’s broad impact.
“We're currently in the fifth wave of technology evolution - an era driven by data and AI, which are accelerating the number of applications that can disrupt every industry due to the timely availability of actionable data-driven insights,” he says.
”XTC alumni, applying AI, blockchain, deep analytics and more across all our market categories, strongly show how this fifth wave can make the world a radically better place.”
Professor Tai says smart ESG investments, ones that recognize that part of ‘sustainability’ is economic sustainability and strong ROI, are continuing to do well and attract capital and Extreme Tech Challenge and its Australian Finalists are shining examples of this growing trend for the 21st Century.”
Find out more about Extreme Tech Challenge at https://extremetechchallenge.org/
