Taurus pulls out all stops to assemble CSIRO pitch event and launch the ON Innovation program
Start-up knowledge supports innovation evening
Our experience working with start-ups and entrepreneurs, combined with our well-honed event management skills, enabled us to move quickly when we won the engagement to co-ordinate and launch a major pitching event in Sydney.
The challenge for Taurus was to organise and resource the CSIRO’s “Demo Night” where students from its ON Innovation program would showcase their clever science and technology innovations in a very public forum.
Event Requirements
They would pitch their ideas to an audience of 350-400 investors, potential industry collaborators, start-up representatives, entrepreneurs and their scientific and research peers, from across the national research landscape.
It was also an opportunity for CSIRO to demonstrate the impact of the ON Innovation program on developing skills and fast-tracking valuable technology.
On the night, the event was scheduled to have two keynote speakers while 11 teams would pitch for two to three minutes. Afterwards, each team would have a dedicated stand to showcase themselves and their ideas.
The Taurus network wins event engagement
Through our networking in the start-up ecosystem, Taurus was well known to senior executives at CSIRO. A year earlier, Taurus played a pivotal role in achieving major publicity for the 4th Global Australian Awards. Advance is the largest global network of high achieving Australians and alumni of Australian universities worldwide.
Taurus works with CEOs, MDs, entrepreneurs and leaders, partnering with them to introduce smart and practical Marketing and PR concepts to achieve business objectives.
Through those connections, the CEO of the CSIRO, Dr Larry Marshall was quick to support the appointment of Taurus as co-ordinators of the Demo Night.
Tight Timeline Challenge
Despite having less than a month to pull the event together, the Taurus team responded effectively and quickly to produce an event that met both the client’s budget and branding needs.
While using their own professional contacts, members of the Taurus team spoke regularly with CSIRO’s marketing department to ensure that all resourcing decisions we approved. This included setting budgets and negotiating the best prices with suppliers.
Taurus co-ordinated the staging of the event, which included identifying the best location, organising the event crew and equipment, arranging lighting, AV, ticketing and catering, and at all times, considering the client’s preferred list of suppliers.
Taurus arranged two keynote speakers and an MC to kick off the pitches at the event, which was held at Carriageworks in Sydney. Utilising Bay 17, which holds 1000 people, Taurus split the space using black curtains, providing theatre-style seating at one end of the room for 400 people. Taurus also oversaw rehearsals pre-event.
“We love the detail in the run sheet.”
– CSIRO Client Feedback
Taurus team closely watched over fast moving deadline lead up to event
Taurus provided 11 booths to each team, similar to a convention space, enabling them to speak with interested audience members. Each team’s space was clearly identified and easily located.
Taurus thought through every detail in co-ordinating the event, including arranging all branding material, down to providing goodie bags to each attendee.
Taurus made numerous visits to the event site to ensure all elements came together in time.
“ON Accelerate provides a framework through which we can extend previous collaborations. It also allows us to look to the future, to generating impact from new future-focused areas in which CSIRO and Macquarie have developed complementary strengths!”
– Professor Sakkie Pretorius, Deputy ViceChancellor (Research), Macquarie University
In two years we’ve moved extremely quickly. Our goal is very much impact through research, to take these ideas and get them put to use. That might be through a start-up, or it could be a policy change. As we start to track ON’s impact, we will see companies that the next Atlassians or Cochlears emerge.”
– Dr Steve Brodie, CSIRO Executive Manager of Innovation, as told to the AFR
What Taurus did for CSIRO
- Event conceptualisation
- Event program flow
- Creative direction
- Budget management
- All supplier management – catering, AV, site, design and build etc
- Onsite event day management – set up, tear down etc
- Event strategy
- Venue and supplier selection
- Attracted audience, influencers and VIP guests
Services purchased
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