In summary

  • Five students represent Swinburne in the Australia Council for the Arts National Innovation Games
  • The National Innovation Games is a series of events that brings together a diverse collection of Australians to facilitate industry collaboration
  • Held from 19-20 August, the challenge topic centred on innovative implementation of technologies to deliver more sustainable organisations, practices and communities

Five students have represented Swinburne in the Australia Council for the Arts National Innovation Games, partnered with Paddl Co and the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia.

Funded by the Australian Government and the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, the National Innovation Games are a collection of ‘Innovation Challenges’. These challenges hosted across Australia are designed to deliver an ‘inclusive innovation’ agenda for the nation.

The Australia Council for the Arts were the Challenge Sponsor, setting the objective to support Australian artists and creatives directly impacted by the COVID-19 situation.

The Challenge topic was “How might you creatively embed technology to deliver more sustainable organisations, practices and/or communities?” encouraging teams to consider new ways of innovating and inspiring artists to explore various digital mediums.

Creative solutions

Over the course of two days the event brought together a community of 400 Australians across a diverse background of innovation teams. The Australian event was the largest National Innovation Games Paddl has ever hosted and took place virtually on Wednesday 19 to Thursday 20 August across platforms including Slack, Zoom and Miro due to the COVID-19 situation.

Swinburne was represented by five students:

From the group of Swinburne challengers, Daniel Rowe was nominated for Challenger of the Day and received an honorable mention from the judges for his strong performance in the final team presentation. Additionally, Daniel was on team ten, ‘The Digits’, which received first place in this year’s program.

“It was a great honour to be nominated for Challenger of the day. Seeing all of the messages from different participants and the coordinators in congratulations was heart-warming,” shares Daniel.

Daniel’s team ‘The Digits’ celebrate their first place win via a team call on Zoom.

 “The highlight of the day for me was moving into a breakout room, watching ideas begin to flow and coming up with our winning idea,” says Daniel.

Evolution in industry

Students were tasked with approaching the critical needs of the arts sector after the significant effects stemming from necessary pandemic restrictions resulting in the closure of venues, cancellation or postponements of events.

“It's a learning experience when you’re virtually collaborating with people who you've only just met. But I would definitely say it had a positive impact on my personality, opening me up more towards working with new people,” says Ravneet Kaur from team thirteen ‘The Mosaics’.

Paddl experiences, including The Australia Council for the Arts National Innovation Games program, are designed to bring together Australia’s brightest minds and facilitate opportunities for artists and organisations to connect and explore creative solutions. 

“It was a great opportunity for networking, putting the theory you’ve learnt into practice and testing our creativity and resourcefulness” says Daniel.

The Australia Council for the Arts National Innovation Games allowed students to engage critically with the effects of disruption and change on Australia’s arts and cultural landscape, and demonstrate the benefits of technological evolution in the creative industry.

“The most challenging and interesting part of the whole setup was providing a solution to a tangible, existing problem for an in-market business in a matter of couple of hours,” says Ravneet.

Challenge awaits

Earlier this year, Swinburne was represented by six students in the virtual EnergyAustralia National Innovation Games for the LaTrobe Valley. Sponsored by EnergyAustralia the event centred around optimising essential services in times of crisis and business resilience for real businesses in regional Victoria.

To register your interest in participating in the next National Innovation Games sign up on paddl.com. Innovation Challenges are offered to all students, graduates, PhDs and academics to participate. 

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