It’s not that easy to find some good startup projects. The Alpha Innovation Contest 2019 is now open for registration. So have you found any new startup ideas for 2019? Which projects are promising and profitable? Listen to some good advice from professors at Western Australian universities.
At the height of the resources boom Phoenix developed their innovative corporate business communication training packages and today more than 20 years later they still train clients from some of the largest companies in the world such as Baosteel, SINO STEEL, KOGAS and the Aust China Gas Fund.
Combines global industry expertise, strategic leadership and exceptional marketing acumen to identify, harness and develop business opportunities across a broad range of highly competitive regional, national and international markets.
Utilises outstanding communication, interpersonal and negotiation skills to create strong, productive networks with diverse internal and external key stakeholder groups whilst leading and mentoring teams to create a culture of service excellence, enhance company reputation and ensure brand success.
RW: my name is Robyn Walsh. I am the founder of Phoenix Academy, co-founder. This is our 30th anniversary year, so it’s been quite a long time since we started our college, which was quite an innovative launch. My role as principal is to be overriding and overseeing a lot of the quality in the academic side of the college. So looking at systems and looking at feedback and looking at the quality assurance process to make sure we always deliver the best training to our clients. And so my view on leadership I think it’s very much caught up with how I feel about innovation and a lot of it is to do with my personality, the type of person that I am.
PP: Hi, my name is Pankaj Pathak. I am the managing director of Phoenix Academy, my role at Phoenix Academy oversees both administrative and academic side of running the business. I have been in Western Australia for just over 19 years and I am Phoenix alumni, started my early years with Phoenix, and my first job was at Phoenix, and I returned after some experience in higher education sector as managing director of Phoenix Academy.
PP : I think my view on innovation is it is critical to the successful running of business. The philosophy of if it is broke and you don’t need to fix it doesn’t exist anymore. Uh, innovation and disruptive innovation creates a platform for us to grow, to learn and cater for a variety of clients that we get from all over the world. And it puts us at the forefront of a competitive nature of the recruitment of international students as well as the delivery of our programs to them, and if we stop innovating and we stop growing.
RW: It is one of my strong interests in the area of innovation. So I think that the things that have been working together to create such a successful institution as Phoenix is that first of all you have to have passion and passion is really hard to describe. It’s something that you have and it’s very hard to fabricate it. It is very hard to make. Use of passion has to be real. Second thing I think is you need is a company to have people around you who are also passionate because it’s like a fire, it will just create more and more passion if you have people around you feel the same way and you’ve got to really have people around you who think creatively we call it thinking outside the box think outside the square. So I was looking for stuff when I want them to join my team who are a little bit different and a little bit lateral in the way they approach things.
The other thing about innovation is that you should look for solutions. So I don’t see any problem with the problem. I think the problem is saying, wow, how can we find a solution? And honestly, that’s where some of the most innovative aspects of our business have come from. So I think it’s also to do with predicting, I think people who are innovators can think ahead and be proactive and anticipate something that might be coming up in the future, looking APPs that moving into education, looking moves, these at all aspects of education, when I started 40 years ago, nobody would have thought about the aspect of online learning but being productive and being on for shadowing we are having for thought and I think that all the qualities that make innovation and entrepreneurship in the company.
PP: As managing director, one of my key roles is uh innovation and creativity at phoenix academy both from a recruitment sales marketing administration aspect, but also working very closely with the academics, to provide our client with innovative products and a diverse range of products. A lot of my innovation and creativity have interestingly come from Robyn who is such a passionate leader in the education world, last year Robyn won the Educator of the year 2018. I have always been guided by her passion and creativity to try new things. Robyn has been a mentor to me both personally and professionally. I have the best of both worlds because her husband Brian Walsh is the chair of the Phoenix Academy. I’ve always had them there to bounce ideas whether I was working at Phoenix or not, they guided my professional career for the last 15 years to where I am now.
RW: Over the years, many people that either outwardly or without even consciously that I talk to people and I am always very encouraging. I am an active member of Institute of Management, I am a fellow of the Institute of Management, and I am actually a mentor there, so I work with a lot of young people through the incubators that they have there, and encouraging them in starting up businesses. Some of the innovative activities we brought to phoenix and we were the first uh institution in the southern hemisphere to bring CEFW to the Common European framework. But now not all over the world. And I bought that CEFW to Australia in 1992 and it was unheard of, but I could see there was a need for a descriptor of language competency. We didn’t have a way of describing how people speak English or speak Chinese. And I went to Paris and I was part of this big conference and I heard about this competency band scoring and I thought wow, that’s what we need in Australia. So that was me, that’s what I said before when you know you have a problem and you have a need and all of a sudden, the penny dropped, that was one of expressions we use. I have this Wow moment and the other thing I brought to phoenix was the concept of what we call flipping the classroom. So flipping the classroom means you don’t give the knowledge from the teacher to the students, so they just hear the knowledge filling up the junk and content based it’s asking the students to do the learning themselves to find Information and then all you do is apply the knowledge with them. So flipping the classroom means they do their preparation at home the day before. And when I come to school it’s all about exploring the concepts and taking it further. So it’s a whole concept. So we brought the flipping the classroom into phoenix about eight years ago and now everyone’s talking about them. We bought the E-boards in so we have interactive delivery where our teachers will be working through the blended delivery, students jumping up working on E-board using their own devices. You walk around the school, you will see everybody using their iPhone and marrying against a board. So all of that I think you get a feel a real buzz when you walk around school that is quite innovative. We are looking at VR now. You could be in China with your VR. And you could actually feel as if you’re in here now having a campus tour. so that it’s unlimited really. And that’s my problem is actually I have too many ideas and I have to sometimes you have to be settled down usually by my husband or Pankaj, to say okay, Robyn, let’s just do one at a time, but I’ve always been driven that way. It’s part of my personality and it’s part of why I love being in this in the education sector.
PP: I think the Alpha Incubation project or the Alpha Innovation Contest is a fantastic platform for young minds to come together. Uh, I guess young and old minds coming together to create products that will benefit both sides of the business and client. I expect to see a high level of collaboration between business and youth. I see the ideas flowing, I see innovative ideas flowing, I see ideas that are going better into the industry, whether that be in education or elsewhere. So I’m really looking forward to seeing all the contests and contestants and their work.
Pankaj Pathak
Managing Director of Phoenix Academy