Six Impact-Led Enterprise Pitches Tackling Global Environmental & Conservation Challenges
HATCH participants with Danielle Fryday (HATCH Program Manager).
How might we address some of the globe’s most pressing environmental and conservation challenges?
HATCH: Taronga Accelerator Program aims to inspire, support and launch innovative ideas and actions to help address some of the most pressing environmental and conservation challenges currently facing our planet.
2021 is the second year of HATCH and, due to COVID restrictions, the program again ran fully online. This year the program supported 8 of Australia’s top, emerging social entrepreneurs leading 6 innovative initiatives. Impact Boom was the proud delivery partner and was impressed by the founders and delivery team.
Alongside Taronga Conservation Society Australia, we’re proud to share some of the incredible outcomes from the dedicated participants of HATCH. On 28th October, a national audience tuned in to their online pitch event. Below, you’ll find the pitches presented on the evening and we’d encourage you to get in touch with the entrepreneurs, buy their products and support their campaigns.
We’d like to graciously thank the entire team at Taronga Conservation Society Australia who made this possible, as well as the amazing presenters and program mentors. Without their support, expertise and contagious positivity, creating a program of this calibre would not be possible.
Keep your eyes on these inspiring initiatives as they evolve, develop their projects and maximise their impact.
Watch the pitches from HATCH 2021 participants and learn some of the key insights from the program delivery team, Danielle Fryday, Belinda Fairbrother and Paul Maguire.
HATCH participants during one of the online workshops.
[Tom Allen] - Can you please tell us more about the HATCH: Taronga Accelerator Program and why Taronga invested in this program to support the community?
[Danielle Fryday, Belinda Fairbrother and Paul Maguire] – HATCH exists to fast track positive impact for our natural environment and the wildlife that call it home. There are many accelerator programs out there to support innovation, but ours is clearly focused on enabling ideas that will tackle or reverse the threats to our natural world.
The 14-week program supports founders to assess, test and validate their early stage ideas and to establish themselves as social enterprise or not-for-profit organisations to drive their initiatives forward. We truly believe in the power of harnessing innovative thinking, collaboration and people’s passion for the natural world to solve the big issues, and HATCH is here to accelerate the changemaker journey and hatch brilliant ideas for the planet.
Taronga believes that innovation is a key part of securing a shared future for people and wildlife, and that brilliant ideas to address these challenges can come from any corner of the community. Last year’s program was a great example of this with our founders coming from a range of professional backgrounds and applying their experience to tackle sustainability issues in new and different ways.
What have some of the key outcomes been?
This year we had a fantastic cohort who, despite the program being run online, developed strong connections to support each other. This was really pleasing to see, as a key purpose of the program is to connect founders with other environmental changemakers to make the journey a little less lonely. Across the program we delivered 40 hours of learning and collaboration, and our amazing Mentors provided more than 100 hours of pro bono advice and guidance. Our Mentors are a core part of the HATCH Program and we are so grateful to them for their support!
The program culminated in the teams pitching to our esteemed Judging Panel and then sharing their initiatives at the public HATCH Pitch Event online. The calibre of the founders and their ventures was recognised by all who saw them in action, with many commenting that they would all be deserved winners. Carapac, founded by Kimberly Bolton, was crowned the 2021 HATCH Winner and recipient of the $50,000 HATCH Grant, and The Pedal Club, founded by Fergus Woollcombe, was voted the $5,000 People’s Choice Winner.
It has been wonderful to see some of the participants also receive external recognition, with Sine Surf co-founder Emile Theau named as the Ocean Impact Organisation Generation Impact Winner, and Xylo System’s founder Camille Goldstone-Henry selected as one of six finalists in the Women’s Weekly Women of the Future Award. This year’s cohort all worked so hard throughout the program and are a truly inspirational group of people committed to creating a better future for all. We look forward to continuing to support them as HATCH alumni and to seeing the positive impact they will achieve.
Being the second year of the program, it has also been great to follow the progress of our 2020 teams and have some of last year’s participants connect and share their insights with this year’s cohort. 2020 Winner Good-Edi (edible coffee cups) has gone from strength to strength over the last 12 months with a successful crowdfunding campaign, establishment of their production facility, partnerships and their cups now being available in a number of cafes in Melbourne and Sydney. Likewise, 2020 team RePlated (takeaway without the waste) has been powering forward, running a successful pilot in Waverly and Bondi in Sydney and recently announcing a partnership with Oh My Lunch for a zero waste office lunch pilot.
As the Program Leads, what's one of the main learnings you'd apply to future programs?
I think my answer this year is the same as last year – the importance of relationships and collaboration. Effective relationships and collaboration are critical to achieving the best outcomes, whether that’s in delivering the HATCH Program or for new startups. Our founders are incredible individuals – smart, passionate and driven – but it’s true that we can all go further together.
The theme of partnerships came up with a number of our speakers during the program this year, and you can also see it in the key outcomes outlined above. I certainly know we wouldn’t be able to deliver HATCH to the level we do if we didn’t partner with you Tom, and if we didn’t have the involvement of the whole HATCH community. That’s my advice to anyone wanting to do anything to full effect – build and nurture your community.
What advice would you give to other organisations seeking to provide this type of support?
This answer ties into the response above: play to your strengths and seek complementary partnerships. That’s what we have done to establish HATCH. The innovation network here in Australia is very open, collaborative and supportive, so I strongly recommend anyone new to it to connect with people who already work in this space to understand what works (and what doesn’t) and then determine your organisation’s place in the ecosystem. We’re always up for a chat!
I also recommend listening to your target audience/participants and seek ongoing feedback. I’m sure this is basic to many people, but I can say from experience during our programs that seeking feedback from our participants as we went through the program enabled us to make tweaks to improve their experience then and there, rather than finding out too late to do anything about it. Focus on continuous improvement rather than perfection.
What’s next for Taronga and HATCH?
There’s always plenty of initiatives on the go at Taronga. Now that we are out of lockdown, we’re delighted to be welcoming guests back to our two Zoos in Sydney and Dubbo, as we know the opportunity to engage with animals is a unique and precious experience for all ages. Behind the scenes our wildlife conservation and science teams continue their important work including breed and release programs for endangered native animals, rehabilitating injured wildlife, and field research. Likewise our education teams, who spent lockdown delivering hundreds of hours of online lessons, are busy planning for 2022 and beyond.
In terms of HATCH, we are exploring new opportunities to engage with people who are interested in the intersection of innovation and conservation. We recognise that there are people who are passionate about wildlife and the environment but may not have figured out their specific initiative just yet, and we’d love to help them to explore ideas and find their purpose in this space. We expect the 2022 HATCH activities to look a bit different and are excited to connect with more changemakers. If you are interested in the role of innovation to support conservation and the environment, please follow us on LinkedIn or join the HATCH mailing list to keep up to date with program plans and news.
watch the pitches
Carapac
Carapac is changing the world of packaging with a sustainable, durable and plantable plastic alternative made from crustacean shell waste.
Carapac works with a local seafood producer to convert their crustacean shell waste into usable inputs for the Carapac material, as well as other sustainable chemical outputs including calcium acetate. Carapac packaging can be home composted in 3-6 weeks, is dissolvable, cheaper than alternatives, and extends the shelf life of fresh produce, thereby saving retailers money and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
CEO & Co-Founder: Kimberly Bolton
Sine Surf
Sine Surf make sustainable wooden surfboards and surf accessories by using natural materials and new manufacturing methods.
These are some of the most sustainably manufactured surfboards on the planet, designed for performance surfing with a love for the ocean and environment. They are making a sustainable surfing lifestyle affordable and available to every surfer.
Co-Founders: Emile Theau and Alastair Pilley
SPOTTR
Spottr is an integrated thermal-optic drone reconnaissance platform for automated location and species identification of vertebrate feral pests, livestock and wildlife.
This next-generation fully automated aerial survey service across rural Australia will make everything from feral management, to stock monitoring to wildlife protection materially more efficient and effective for large private and public land managers. It is structured as an infrastructure shared service operating out of self-contained automated group stations across the country.
Founder: Matthew Kronborg
The Pedal Club
The Pedal Club is a kids bike subscription service providing parents with an alternative option to buying children's bicycles and, in turn, reducing bike waste globally.
Every year approximately 17 million bikes are bought and around 15 million are discarded in the same time period. Parents also face the issue of children growing fast, meaning they grow out of bikes very quickly. The Pedal Club provides a flexible, convenient and sustainable solution to these problems, enabling parents to easily upgrade as kids grow, and ensuring the bikes have a four time longer lifespan.
Founders: Fergus Woollcombe and Edward Womersley
Visible
Visible is a creative agency that works with conservation causes to heighten awareness of what they do and grow their funding streams. They develop items based on the conservation work of NGOs that also function as cutting-edge consumer products.
To do this they work closely with the conservation organisations to understand the challenges faced on the ground, then ideate and co-design product solutions with a conservation outcome. The result is exciting, marketable projects that stand out and are attractive to major consumer brands, based on the alignment of values with their customer base.
Co-Founders: Sacha Kenyon and George Barnes
Xylo Systems
Xylo Systems is a cloud-based platform for conservation teams to connect, track and manage conservation projects.
Xylo will enable users across Australia and the world to more effectively and efficiently connect and share critical information to support proactive and agile conservation management decisions. Using technology like artificial intelligence and analytics, Xylo is turbocharging threatened species management with technology to tackle the extinction crisis faster, together.
Founder: Camille Goldstone-Henry
