Starting up and spinning out: taking smart ideas to market

This event is in association with the Uncharted Territory program an ACT Government initiative.

Turning innovation into a business takes more than a great idea. Join us for an exciting panel event with Canberra's leading entrepreneurs and innovative thinkers to be inspired from those who've been there and done it.

The panel consists of Petr Adamek, CEO Canberra Innovation Network, Jayden Castillo, Chief of Staff Quantum Brilliance, Jekaterina Viktorova, CEO Syenta, and Paul Wigley, COO Nomad Atomics and will be moderated by Dr Elaine Stead, ANU Associate Director, New Ventures & Entrepreneurship. Dr Keats Nelms, Chief, ANU Research & Innovation Services will be opening the event and will deliver the vote of thanks.

Don't miss out on this amazing opportunity to hear directly from Canberra's start-up ecosystem leaders and to find out how you can transform your big idea into a successful business.

Speaker biographies

Dr Elaine Stead, ANU Associate Director, New Ventures & Entrepreneurship

Elaine has been a scientist, turned entrepreneur, turned venture capitalist, and never quite shed any of these roles.

Across over two decades in the innovation sector, Elaine has been a serial entrepreneur, founding medtech company Reproductive Health Science and Blue Sky VC a subsidiary of Blue Sky Alternative investments, Human VC and Artefact ventures. She is one of the longest serving, still active venture capitalists in Australia, having been involved in the management of over $450 m across five venture fund vintages, four within her own fund manager, Blue Sky VC.

Petr Adamek, CEO, Canberra Innovation Network

Petr Adamek has over 25 years of international experience in building innovation ecosystems that support businesses to innovate and grow. Prior to coming to Australia in 2014, Petr was a co-founder of a successful European innovation consultancy, ex-Business Growth Manager and later CEO of a business incubator in New Zealand and co-author of several practical startup tools. Petr's background is in artificial intelligence (Master of Computer Science, 1991) and business (MBA, 1998). Petr has worked with over 100 start-up companies in several leading accelerator and incubator programs in Europe, New Zealand and Australia as a mentor and business growth advisor.

Jekaterina Viktorova, CEO and Co-Founder, Syenta

Jeka is a highly accomplished professional with a strong background in chemistry and printed electronics, having worked in both industry and academia. Her passion for using technology to solve real-world problems has been evident throughout her career. She earned her Master's degree from RWTH Aachen and gained valuable start-up experience in printed electronics in Germany prior to pursuing a PhD at ANU. During her doctoral program, Jeka co-invented and led the development of an innovative additive manufacturing method using electrochemistry, which ultimately led to the creation of Syenta. As the CEO and Co-Founder of Syenta, Jeka is currently spearheading the company's mission to revolutionize the electronics manufacturing sector by delivering printers based on their ground-breaking technology to customers. 

Jayden Castillo, Chief of Staff, Quantum Brilliance 

Jayden graduated from ANU with a Physics degree before commencing a career in consulting at Accenture. There he held several innovation focused roles, including Innovation Community Lead at "The Garden", Accenture's Government & Health innovation hub. During this time Jayden was also lead facilitator for InnovationACT, a 10-week entrepreneurship program for ANU students with 100+ annual participants. Since leaving Accenture Jayden has spent the last 2.5 years at Quantum Brilliance, most recently as Chief of Staff, supporting strategic execution of the company.

Paul Wigley, COO Nomad Atomics

Paul, a co-founder of Nomad Atomics, is an expert is quantum sensing. He spent his PhD developing novel techniques for augmenting and improving cold-atom quantum accelerometers. In 2016, Paul developed and ran the first machine-learning driven ultra-cold atom lab in the world. Paul was an instrumental part of a flagship Capability and Technology Demonstrator (CTD) project to build a compact field-ready atomic sensor.

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