This Week in Startups Australia

UPDATED In our first news special for Series 5, host Claire Connelly talks to Carthona Capital's Dean Dorrell and journalist Paul Wallbank about Australia's struggle to commercialise research, the arrival of Silicon Valley tech accelerator powerhouse 500 Startups - in Melbourne, Uber's no good very bad week and what start-ups get wrong about the press.

Huge news!

TWISTA co-host Claire Connelly sits down with Carthona Capital partner Dean Dorrell and journalist Paul Wallbank to discuss the latest news relevant to startups - yes, it's another TWISTA News Special!

TWISTA Co-hosts Claire Connelly and Mark Pesce in conversation with Wyatt Roy, the former Parliamentarian and Assistant Minister for Innovation, freshly back from his travels overseas, and deep into an artificial intelligence startup. Together we take a post-mortem look at the the government’s “Ideas Boom” as we ask Wyatt ‘what happened’? The inside scoop from the ultimate source, on this episode of This Week in Startups Australia.

Wyatt Roy dropped by the studio - he'd spent the day scouting office space for his new AI startup - and had a long conversation with TWISTA co-hosts Claire Connelly and Mark Pesce.

TWISTA Co-host Claire Connelly in conversation with Paul Shetler, the former chief of the Digital Transformation Office (now the Digital Transformation Agency). With more than 20 years experience, Shetler has worked in digital transformation for both the UK government’s Cabinet Office and the UK's Ministry of Justice, as well as in the US private sector for companies including Oracle and Microsoft. He recently had some frank words for Turnbull administration - and the public service more broadly - and its role in the quote ‘predictable’ raft of recent IT failures across the ATO, ABS and Centrelink, to name a few.

Paul Shetler has a long and candid talk with TWISTA co-host Claire Connelly.

TWISTA opens series 5 with Monica Wulff, CEO of Startup Muster, who goes through all the key points of the recently released 2016 survey of Australia's startup ecosystem. Then TWISTA speaks to Elanation co-founder Katherine Maree Pace and Aimee Atkins about building a lifestyle tech company that starts with a 'child-centred' design process.

Elanation co-founders Aimee Atkins (left) and Kathrine Maree Pace (right) have created an new toy that get kids up and active - by connecting the virtual world of screens to the real world of activities.

Visit the site. Download the PDF. It's so pretty it will make you weep tears of infographic joy.

Startup Muster CEO Monica Wulff joined TWISTA to talk through some of the most interesting results of the 2016 Startup Muster survey of the Australian startup ecosystem.

When the Next Payment Platform rolls out in October, Australia will be a world leader with an open platform for payments - open to banks and any other company that wants to provide a payments product or service. This could make Australia the best environment to nurture a payments startup - if we take advantage of the opportunity. TWISTA talks to NPP Australia CEO Adrian Lovney and SWIFT Oceania head Bill Doran about the potential and reality of this once-in-a-generation transition. This Payments Special is brought to you by Braintree Payments.

Adrian Lovney, CEO of NPP Australia, and Bill Doran, head of SWIFT Oceania, joined TWISTA for our third and final Payments Special to discuss the opportunities inherent in the once-in-a-generation rollout of the New Payments Platform. It's an interview everyone interested in fintech will want to listen to.

How do we get more and better women entrepreneurs in Australia's startup ecosystem? SheStarts Managing Director Nicole Hazell tells TWISTA to start by recruiting the best, putting them through a bootcamp, then give them the resources they need to succeed. Then TWISTA closes out Series 4 in conversation with ecosystem mentor Nicole Williamson and journalist Claire Connelly - and drops two bombshell surprises!

Joining TWISTA for the last segment in 2016 - a segment in which much is revealed that will change the show forever! - are startup mentor legend Nicole Williamson (right), and journalist Claire Connelly. Hope we'll be seeing lots more of both in 2017!

Here are the first twenty finalists selected in SheStarts!

Nicola Hazell is the new managing director of the SheStarts initiative at Blue Chilli, and came onto TWISTA to talk about what it takes to build a female-focused accelerator program.