UniSquare.me team from left: James Higgie, Andrew Loh, David Mah, Nigel Ang, Michael Qiu

A new program supporting staff, students and alumni to translate ideas into commercial reality has been launched at The University of Melbourne.

The Melbourne Accelerator Program (MAP) nurtures the passion for entrepreneurship, accelerating the journey from idea to market.

The Melbourne School of Engineering (MSE) joins only a handful of leading institutions globally providing an entrepreneurial program to its staff, students and alumni.

MAP aims to:

Dean of the Melbourne School of Engineering Professor Iven Mareels said that MAP would help translate ideas into practice and increase opportunities for staff, students and alumni to develop successful entrepreneurial careers.

Engineering is all about investing in new ways of doings things and the MAP program offers a practical way for ideas to develop into potentially commercial ventures, he said.

MAP winners From thirty-two aspiring teams, four have been selected to receive Entrepreneurial Fellowships, mentoring and coaching support for their start-up ventures. The four Start-up Teams consist of 12 participants, who come from a variety of backgrounds including engineering students and alumni and external participants. A steering committee will provide governance of MAP through 2012 to develop the program and to evaluate performance at its conclusion in November.

VenueMob: an Internet venue booking system. Team members of VenueMob are: Ying Wang (current Melbourne University student); Devrim Van Dijk (current Master of Engineering student); James Giang (Business Analyst, Telstra); David Wei (Business Development Manager, Project Leader and Head of Training, Groupon Australia and NZ). VenueMob is an Internet booking system that will streamline venue bookings. This tool will enable venue owners to market and fully utilise their function spaces and function organisers to compare venues and make the right venue booking quickly and easily.

Remote Area Power System: an innovative power system for rural and remote areas. Braden Kidd completed an Electrical Engineering degree with Honours in 2008, and is a current student in the Master of Energy Systems program. The aim of his Start-up is to design a Remote Area Power System that will enable clients in rural and remote areas to get the most effective use from their available energy supply, whether it be off-grid alternative energy sources, single wire earth return or a combination of both.

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Accelerating the next generation of entrepreneurs