Five Pitches To Tackle The Globe’s Pressing Environmental & Conservation Challenges — Impact Boom | Social Impact Blog & Podcast | Global Changemaker Community | Social Innovation, Enterprise, Design
[Tom Allen] – Can you please tell us more about the HATCH: Taronga Accelerator Program and why Taronga invested in this program to support the community?
[Danielle Fryday and Paul Maguire] – HATCH aims to inspire, support and launch innovative ideas and actions to help address some of the most pressing environmental and conservation challenges currently facing our planet. Taronga believes that innovation is a key part of securing a shared future for people and wildlife, and that brilliant ideas to address these challenges can come from any corner of the community.
HATCH is open to applications from across Australia. The program supports founders to assess, test and validate their early stage ideas and to establish themselves as social enterprise or not-for-profit organisations to drive their initiatives forward. We truly believe in the power of harnessing innovative thinking, collaboration and people’s passion for the natural world to solve the big issues, and HATCH is here to accelerate the changemaker journey and hatch brilliant ideas for the planet.
What have some of the key outcomes been?
We are delighted that we were able to go ahead in spite of COVID-19, successfully delivering the accelerator program 100% online and a virtual pitch event attended by 200 people that was very positively received. Through the program we were able to support ten passionate changemakers to progress their five inspiring sustainability initiatives.
The HATCH Program delivered 40 hours of learning and collaboration time for the participants, and connected them with experienced mentors and subject matter experts from across the start-up, business, and for-purpose arenas who generously provided more than 100 hours of pro bono advice and support. Each team received $2,000 equity free seed funding, and at the pitch event we announced the $50,000 HATCH Grant winner Good-Edi, and $5,000 People’s Choice Award winner PoopLoop.
Most importantly, every team made strong progress on their ventures and saw significant growth in their business and startup knowledge. We are really proud of all of the teams and delighted that they found HATCH to be a very positive and valuable program. We are excited to follow and support the HATCH 2020 teams’ progress to drive positive change.
As the Program Leads, what’s one of the main learnings you’d apply to future programs?
The value of relationship building and collaboration for everyone involved. Speaking to many accelerator program managers when we were designing HATCH, they all identified the importance of great mentors and of nurturing cohort relationships. Having now run our program this is absolutely true.
We were blessed with a fantastic group of mentors with a wide range of expertise that greatly enriched the support available to our teams, and the teams highly valued their involvement and guidance. Establishing cohort connections was made more difficult with COVID-19 preventing the group coming together in person, but credit to the participants for making the best of the situation and turning up online every time with a positive mindset and a smile. And a huge thanks to Taronga Director of Education Paul Maguire’s own startup Mixopia for enabling the soundtrack of the HATCH 2020 Program that helped us to all connect from afar.
What advice would you give to other organisations seeking to provide this type of support?
Reach out and connect with the innovation ecosystem – they are such a welcoming, supportive and generous group! I have been blown away by the openness of everyone I connected with – they are all so willing to share their knowledge and experiences to benefit the greater good.
The second piece of advice is to partner with people and organisations whose values and vision align with yours. HATCH’s partnership with Impact Boom is the perfect example of this, and that strong alignment was fundamental to HATCH’s success in 2020. We are so grateful for the support of Tom Allen and the Impact Boom team, and to all the individuals and organisations who supported us this year.
What’s next for Taronga and HATCH?
Despite the challenges of 2020, Taronga continues its work to support native species in the wild through a range of research and breeding programs, rescue and rehabilitate native wildlife, educate the next generation, and inspire our guests to appreciate and protect our natural world.
Recently we announced the very exciting news that the NSW Government will provide partial funding for the development of two brand new wildlife hospitals in Sydney and Dubbo. These facilities will also include a state-of-the-art Reptile and Amphibian Conservation Centre and Platypus Visitor and Education Facility.
As for HATCH, preparations have begun to run the accelerator again in 2021. Hopefully COVID stays at bay and we can run it as originally intended, with group time together at Taronga Zoo as well as online sessions. We look forward to supporting a new group of passionate changemakers to hatch their brilliant ideas for the planet! If you are interested in the HATCH Program, please follow us on LinkedIn or join the HATCH mailing list to keep up to date with program plans and news.