The Academy of Entrepreneurs pitch to Austrade “Brand Australia’’ as the world’s most entrepreneurial nation!

The first Australian accredited incubator and Sydney based education college ‘The Academy of Entrepreneurs’ last night launched a Corporate Challenge in collaboration with the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) in response to the Australian Government Initiative to develop a stronger Nation Brand. The initiative is all about better positioning Australia to enhance our global competitiveness.

The Foreign Policy White Paper of 2017 found that the current nation branding is fragmented with no unified representation of Australia internationally. It showed that the number of individual brands in the global market place was diluting the effectiveness of the collective promotion of Australia. 

The students of the Academy of Entrepreneurs presented their Brand Australia proposals to Fiona De Jong, Head of Australia's Nation Brand at Austrade after being mentored through the Corporate Challenge by two creative industry leaders, both entrepreneurs in their own right, Duncan Harriss, Managing Director of award winning integrated production company Limehouse Creative and Dan Aldridge, Creative Director, BBC Studios Australia and Hyperkid. 

Fiona De Jong said, “I had the opportunity to hear the top four pitches from extraordinary entrepreneurs of Australia. I was blown away by the creativity, and the expression and the imagination of these incredible young people in our country. Each of the ideas was executed in different ways but collectively articulated some really special attributes of this country and that’s what this whole project was about. Let’s get to the essence in a simple way about what’s great about his country and let’s celebrate that. The people in this course were able to do that over the course of a very short period of time so I do thank the Academy of Entrepreneurs for the opportunity to have this project come to life and for sharing with us the inspiring ideas from young entrepreneurs in our country.” “What brief could be more exciting than helping rebrand and better brand Australia! The Nation Brand initiative is one that resonates with our own industry and citizens of course but perhaps more importantly, one that needs to be heard across the world by potential investors and talent to convince them Australia is the place to come to realise their dreams. We believe that Australia is the perfect place to test and launch a start-up; because we are a multicultural, young, innovative nation with a strong economy. Entrepreneurs are a key voice, a current and future demographic and engine of Australia,” says Duncan Harriss.

Over 5 weeks, 61 students and budding entrepreneurs from over 40 nationalities workshopped ideas and creative concepts to rebrand Australia. Students learnt branding and advertising 101, analysed what Australia has to offer as a nation and critiqued other successful global nation brand campaigns.

Dan Aldridge said, “The brief most certainly peaked my interest and my hunger to be part of an ambitious and exciting branding exercise. By sharing my expertise, wisdom and skillsets in branding and design, I feel the young budding entrepreneurs that have attended our sessions have really got a lot out of it, with a wide range of integrated ideas and concepts being displayed.”