Programs

February 26th – March 6th

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Testimonials

Shirley Liu
Mechanical Engineer

I participated in Innovation Dojo 1st program in December 2016 and it was one of the greatest choice that I have made. Thanks for this amazing opportunity, I have learnt so much valuable skills. This program, has not only given us endless support, but also, taught us different sets of knowledge along the journey. The mentors have given out so much great advice and insights. They are always being very patient about helping teams out. I'm so honoured to have these amazing mentors and I would highly recommend their work!

Christina Yuan
Entrepreneur and Event Co-ordinator

Every group of us learnt a lot and did excellent in the final pitch within 9 days. This program arouses my interest towards start ups and now I am still working on it with passion.

Daphne Shen
Co-founder, V-KAIWA

Throughout the Innovation Dojo program, Josh was an amazing mentor, a source of wisdom and was always extremely welcoming. His supportive personality helped me grow immensely over the 9 days as I learnt a plethora of new skills that will stay with me for a long time. The program was eye-opening and Josh’s positive and passionate attitude towards his work has been inspiring.

Past programs/events

Programs

2017

Our vision

Born out of UNSW Innovations, Innovation Dojo is a program, a platform and a community connecting students and entrepreneurs with world class mentors and opportunities across JAPAC

Establish Innovation Dojo community

Develop Global Human Capital

Solve big problems for Aus & Japan

Events, Seminars and Training camps
for Innovation and Startups in Japan and Australia



Community platform
Learn, socialise and collaborate online and face-to-face

Language Support
Improve Proficiency in English & Japanese via cross-cultural collaboration


Design thinking & Lean startup methodology
Stimulate innovative thinking and startup knowledge whilst incubating real projects

Incubating startups that solve real problems
Introduce global minded entrepreneurs to problems in agriculture, fintech, ICT and other areas strategically important to Japan and Australia

Global Talent Hub
Connect human resources with international firms and local exporters

What’s innovation dojo?

Tackle the biggest problems faced by Australian and Japan

Agriculture
Aged Care
Science
FinTech

Innovation Dojo

'Innovation Dojo' is a unique cross-cultural Startup program that enables young talented language professionals to collaborate with budding entrepreneurs

  • Kick-off Mixer Event
  • Startup formation
  • Cross-cultural Lean Startup program - 12 week program
  • Pitching competition
  • In-country program for winners (Japan)
Download Flyer.
  • Innovation Dojo

    • Culture Specific Startup Mentoring

    We have a network of Japan-Australia startup experts to guide your journey

    • Multi-cultural
    • multi-lingual startup expertise
    Innovation Dojo Mentors
  • Culture Specific Startup Mentoring

    • Representative office for startups

    Experienced professional team to help you

    • Market entry for Japan and Australia
    • Local professional networking
    • Introduce partners in Japan for Australian Entrepreneurs
    Contact us
  • Representative office for startups

      • Mentors

      An international network of mentors

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      Yoshinori Sakuno
      Founder, doq

      Yoshi holds an Executive MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM), UNSW. He has over 16 years of international marketing experience for global blue chip brands and specialises in building enduring brands and the commercialisation of products into new markets. In 2009, he founded cross-cultural marketing agency doq® in Sydney where he has built a diverse cross-cultural team, partnered with clients from a broad range of industries including government institutions to start-ups, and has seen the company grow significantly in the area of innovative marketing products and solutions from Japan. In 2014, Yoshi was invited to speak as a cross-cultural marketing expert at TEDxTitech Tokyo and currently holds the government appointed position of Australian Market Advisor for the Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, Japan.
      David Lawson

      David Lawson
      Senior Trade Commissioner, Austrade

      David is currently the Trade Commissioner for Australia in Japan and has a long and strong history of working between Australia and Japan in the area of government and business. He has been the judge of several international startup pitching competitions and has first-hand experience as an Australian entrepreneur in Japan.
      Jason-Hayes

      Jason Hayes
      Partner at PwC

      Jason Hayes is the leader of PwC’s Japan Practice in Asia Pacific (ex Japan). Jason is a Financial Assurance partner and has more than 25 years of international experience providing assurance and advisory services to companies in a wide variety of industry sectors in Australia, Japan and the UK. Jason is the lead author of PwC’s “Japan Rebooted” series and is a regular commentator in the media and presenter at forums on Japanese trade and investment in Australia including seminars organized by PwC in conjunction with Asialink, JCCI and JETRO. Jason has spent the past 8 years on assignment with PwC in Japan and he is an active member of the Australia Japan Business Cooperation Committee.
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      Paul Chapman
      Moneytree, Chief Executive and Founder

      Paul is Chief Executive and Founder at Moneytree, a fast growing fintech venture business based in Tokyo, Japan. After launching a mobile app in 2013, Apple awarded Moneytree the App Store Best of 2013 for iPhone and Best of 2014 for iPad. In the last two years Moneytree has turned its underlying technology into a fintech platform used by accounting software, major banks and fintech startups. Moneytree is bridging the expectations gap between financial institutions, individuals and small businesses and has attracted a ¥ 1 billion ($12 million) Series B funding round from all three Japanese megabanks..
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      Anita Byrnes
      Director with special expertise in Japan

      Anita has a wealth of experience as a business owner and director in the software industry including 25 years in Japan. She specialises in business development, marketing, project management, localization for the Japan market and Japanese language and technical translation. Anita also holds a board position with the Australia-Japan Society of NSW.
      David

      David Devlin
      Group CEO, systemsGo

      David is originally from Sydney Australia, and has lived in Asia for over 25 years. He worked for the Japanese construction company Shimizu Corporation as well as the Australian Embassy in Tokyo prior to founding systemsGo in 1998. systemsGo is a world class multi-lingual IT consultancy and professional services provider with an annual sales revenue of JPY1.5billion (AUD19.5million) and has offices in Japan, China, India, Singapore and Australia. He has served on the boards of several companies and also as Vice Chair of the Australia New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Japan for several years.
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      Robert Millar
      Founder & Business Consultant at Ginza Hub

      Robert is a Tokyo-based startup expert who owns and operates co-working space Ginza Hub. After 15 years as a consultant and 25 years working in Japan, his passion is now coaching startups on the tools and strategies needed to succeed. He has founded or bought then later sold several successful offline and online businesses, giving him unique insight into what really works and what really doesn’t work to start up and run a small business, especially in Japan.
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      Yumi Millan
      Management Consultant

      Yumi was born and raised in Japan and subsequently built her professional career in Spain and Australia. A Business and Economics major from Jyochi University with an MBA from ESADE, she has dedicated most of her career to the management of legal firms, primarily in the intellectual property space. She has acted as a strategic consultant to Japanese companies, in particular, with an interest in the European Union and later in Australia. She now heads the Australian office of the intangible asset strategist firm EverEdge Global, providing advisory and transactional services.
      Tim Gamble

      Tim Gamble
      Solving IT Headaches in Japan, NZ and Singapore

      Tim has deep experience in finance and accounting including 8 years in Japan, is a qualified CPA and in his current role services Japanese clients in the areas of funds management, investments, IFRS, Treasury, Accounting and Financial Analysis.
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      Dominic Carter
      CEO, The Carter Group

      Dominic is a marketing insights practitioner and entrepreneur who has devoted his career to assisting international clients succeed in Japan. He studied Commerce and Japanese at the UNSW before starting his career which led him to Japan in the late nineties. Dominic is experienced in most aspects of cultural adaptation, communications testing, brand development, brand tracking, segmentation and bespoke consumer research, both qualitative and quantitative. He leads a team of 40 full time people across The Carter Group of companies including Carter JMRN and Potentiate Global with offices in Tokyo, Osaka and Singapore.
      Tim Romero

      Tim Romero
      Four-time Founder, Investor, Podcaster

      Tim has started several companies since coming to Japan more than 20 years ago, and is deeply involved in Japan’s startup community as an investor, founder and mentor. He is currently a Market Entry Advisor for Creww, and hosts the Disrupting Japan podcast which focuses on Japanese startups and market entry.
      Tim believes there is a new wave of both home-grown entrepreneurship and an increased openness to Western technology companies that is already beginning to fundamentally change Japan for the better.
      Junko Foley

      Junko Foley
      Co-Founder, Silver Egg Technology

      After graduating from Kobe College in 1984, Junko Foley (Nishimura) worked as a liaison officer and interpreter to the Governor of Osaka Prefecture from 1987 to 1989. After 1989, she worked as a simultaneous interpreter at various international conferences. In 1994, she set up a company called MAID Japan which is a sole sales agent of MAID Inc., a listed British company specialized in online database services. After she transferred its sales rights to a Fujitsu subsidiary “G-Search”, she founded Silver Egg Technology, a realtime recommender service company in Japan, with Thomas Foley in 1998 and worked there as COO until 2015. She is now the President and owner of Daidomon (the original and first chain of Korean BBQ restaurants in Japan) and is co-founder of Silver Egg Technology.
      Jacques

      Jacques Deguest
      Angel Investor, Co Founder & CEO at Angels, Inc, MBA, LLM

      Jacques is a tech–savvy Angel Investor investing in Asia and Japan in particular in the service industry, and is very active and supportive of entrepreneurs, specialising in strategic planing in service industry in Asia and Japan in particular and versed into post M&A consolidation and rationalisation. He has held various roles as CFO of start-up companies focusing on value creation. His diverse professional background includes time as an MBA specialised in venture capital and finance, as a lawyer (LLM in International Business Law cum laude) specialised in Corporate Governance including a specialisation in Japan Corporate Law; and experience incorporating companies in Japan, preparing contracts and other legal documents in Japanese.

      Jacques speaks, reads and writes French, English and Japanese fluently, is working on his Korean and would love to learn Russian.
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      Roger Sho Gehrmann
      Head of Design, Pandora (AU/NZ)

      Born in Japan, much of Rogers creative influence and direction comes from his roots in and connection with Japanese culture and media. Before moving to Australia, Roger lived his childhood across multiple countries before completing a Digital Media, Design and Media Arts Degree at UNSW in Sydney. He has since spent over a decade working across Creative, Design, UX and Project Management roles and his work has earned multiple awards from industry bodies including the Australian App Design Awards, Australian Mobile Awards, The Communicator Awards, Magento Site Awards, AIMIA and ADMA. In addition to guiding global brands from Audi to Macquarie Bank in the digital space, he has previously been an adviser to startups including OneFlare, AirServices and LionChefs and now holds the position of Head of Design for music tech startup Pandora in its Australian operations.
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      Junko Katsuda
      Principal at Katsuda Synergy Lawyers

      Junko has a deep understanding of cross-cultural entrepreneurship, graduating with a law degree in Kyoto before moving to Australia to study Australian law and ultimately going on to start her own innovative law firm in Sydney. Junko has a full range of corporate legal expertise including the legalities of starting foreign businesses in Japan and founded Katsuda Synergy Lawyers in 2013 where she is the Principal lawyer. In this capacity she provides advanced strategic legal guidance in all aspects of corporate, employment, immigration and family law.
      Ryohei

      Ryohei Shirai
      Chief, Business Strategy Group, Asahi Broadcasting Corporation

      Ryohei works within the well established broadcasting firm, Asahi Broadcasting Corporation, in Osaka, Japan. He is a specialist in the areas of technology and startup collaboration, and his role sits within the venture capital arm of the firm, ABC Dream Ventures. ABC Dream Ventures has a focus on startups related to advertising, media, entertainment, big data, health care, edtech, fintech and crowd sourcing.
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      Bob Seidler AM
      Alternate Director at Leighton Holdings Limited

      A lawyer by training, Bob has over 40 years experience in working in Asia, particularly Japan and Indonesia. Currently he is a board member of : – CIMIC Group Limited (formerly Leighton Holdings Limited) – Investa Office Fund – Investa Office Management Also – a Vice-President of the Australia-Japan Business Co-Operation Committee – New South Wales Government Special Envoy-Japan – Chairman of Hunter Phillip Japan Ltd Bob was made a Member of the General Division of the Order of Australia for services to the international business community, to the development of Australia-Japan bilateral commercial relations and through the generation of new business opportunities. The Emperor of Japan has conferred on Bob, The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon in recognition of his contribution to strengthening economic relations between Japan and Australia
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      Jason Khoh
      Founder at mochiwa mochiya - the Japanese translation experts

      Jason is the founder of Japanese translation house, mochiwa mochiya, and is a Research & Liaison Officer at the Japan Local Government Centre. He is a MEXT scholarship recipient with a law degree from the University of Tsukuba and two Masters degrees (Translation & Interpreting and International Relations) from Macquarie University. He was the first to introduce e-learning (coincidentally developed by an Aussie startup) to medical universities in Japan at Nihon University School of Medicine and as the Regional BD Manager for ProScribe Medical Communications, he helped them secure the 2013 Queensland Regional Exporter of the Year Award. Jason also acts as a strategic consultant for Australian firms looking to expand further into Australia, Japan and across the globe.
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      Jeremy Shaw
      Senior Vice President Asia at Intralink

      Jeremy is a Japan market entry expert and is the Senior Vice President Asia at Intralink. He has been working in North East Asia for the last 10 years with a focus on Business Development for foreign companies entering Japan including many Venture Capital backed foreign startups.
      Todd Heslins

      Todd Heslin
      Digital Entrepreneur | Investor | Data Analytics Nerd

      Todd is a data nerd, entrepreneur and digital investor. Cutting his teeth in Corporate Finance, he started his first business as a student at UNSW and whilst on a cadetship with Ernst & Young. After leaving his first business after four years, he returned eight years later to facilitate its sale. Todd has been hunting and solving problems across the energy, software, eCommerce, and digital media industries within the Asia Pacific region for the last 10 years. His team and clients span across Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, China, and the Phillipines. Todd loves Javascript, PostgreSQL, building digital assets, and using data to tell compelling stories.
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      Ken Aoyama
      Chief Product Officer, Advisory Board Member, Mentor

      Ken started a company in China at 14 years old, worked as CTO of the second startup in Japan since 22, has spent 11 years with Microsoft, and for the last 5 years has led the engineering teams of Cybozu, aTokyo Stock Exchange listed software company with over 18 Billion JPY in Capital and 600 employees worldwide, to deliver fast growth kintone.com aPaaS for global market. Fluent in Japanese, Mandarin and English, Ken has also led the global expansion of Cybozu establishing kintone business in the China, US and Australian markets. Ken currently holds an Advisory Board position with Cybozu and is Chief Product Officer of Australian SaaS company SiteMinder.
      Wedding photography by Brendan Fitzpatrick at Love is Light

      Allen Haroutonian
      Co-founder @ X-Lab

      Co-founder of X-Lab Ventures. Strategist at Delta-V, former Startup Scientist at Pollenizer, and alum of Apple & IBM. Passionate about helping people achieve their potential. Focused on strategy, partnerships & commercialisation, combined with a love of DeepTech & UN SDG’s. Allen is an experienced business/founder coach, mentor and advisor, with a demonstrated history of working in startups, management consulting, global technology companies. Multi-disciplinary skills in social enterprise development, partnerships, revenue generation, and ‘X'aaS models. Passionate about family, learning, helping people, and trying to solve meaningful problems in the world with an entrepreneurial approach.
      Angela Kwan

      Angela Kwan
      Director, 9 Springs

      Angela Kwan is a lawyer and entrepreneur having co-founded Catalyser, a social enterprise focused on workplace giving. After many years working in China, Taiwan & Hong Kong as a lawyer and in multinational corporations including General Electric, she is currently based in Sydney focusing on entrepreneurial interests in real estate, education, technology, startups & philanthropy. She has had a long connection with Japan via her family business and study abroad experience. Angela studied Japanese from high school in Sydney and majored in Japanese studies for her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Sydney. She studied abroad at Kobe University Law School for the final semester of her Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Sydney and she also holds a Masters of Laws from Harvard University.
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      Rayn Ong
      Early Stage Tech Investor

      Rayn Ong is an investor in early stage tech businesses. He works closely with venture fund managers, angel investor groups and accelerator programs to co-invest in high growth opportunities.
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      Dimitrios Salampasis
      Lecturer of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Swinburne University of Technology

      Dimitrios Salampasis (Ph.D.) is a Lecturer of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Swinburne University of Technology. He is an internationally-educated, self-motivated, visionary researcher and trained professional with more than 12 years of international professional working experience. In addition to his academic activities, Dimitrios is actively involved in consulting activities by assisting companies in developing long-term strategic focus and market business strategies. Dimitrios is an active and enthusiastic volunteer, youth business mentor and trainer on peace education and has participated in numerous international programmes, workshops and conventions as a presenter, facilitator and rapporteur.
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      Jason Hosking
      Co-Founder & CEO, HIVERY

      Jason is Co-Founder and CEO of HIVERY. He drives the company’s vision, strategy and growth as they build solutions that transform the way businesses use data to grow their profit line. He is also the Co-Founder of start-up studio Red Garage Ventures. Jason has a wealth of experience from working with multinationals to start-ups. His passion for innovation was sparked as a 12-year-old travelling the world with camera crews for shows like Beyond 2000 and Discovery Channel’s Invention. In 2013, Jason was selected as a founding member of Coca-Cola’s first global Accelerator, a network of entrepreneurs building the next generation of billion dollar businesses with Coca-Cola’s support. Jason has also held senior strategic advisory roles with Accenture and Macquarie Group - where he relocated to New York to establish their North American office. He has also worked in a VC and helped Rocket Internet launch in Australia. Jason holds a MBA from University of Technology, Sydney. Jason has been exploring the Japan market and has built up a Japanese customer base for his company for the last 18 months.
      Sina Fateh

      Sina Fateh
      CEO at Kali Care

      Sina Fateh is the CEO of Kali a leading AI powered IoT platform based in Silicon Valley. Sina is an investment advisor to Heuristic Capital and Lab 360 incubator. He has extensive experience in technology partnership and investment with major Japanese companies and he regularly co publish scientific paper with Japanese universities. Prior to Kali Sina was part of the founding team of Atheer Labs a leading AR company, before that he was the Founder and CEO of Vega Vista, Inc. pioneering smart inertial sensor technology acquired in 2008. Sina was also the Founder of Neuroptical Labs a medical VR company. Sina graduated from Louis Pasteur Medical school, with advance degree in Vision Science, and HEC business school. He is the author and co-author of more than 100 patents in areas such as IoT, digital health, next generation VR and AR, intra ocular implants and eye surgery.

      Technical Mentors

      Felix

      Felix Kam
      Co-Founder dotd, H2 Ventures

      Felix is the co-founder of dotd, a H2 Ventures portfolio company. He has previously worked as a Full Stack Engineer for PwC and held positions with Data61 and Microsoft.
      Nelson

      Nelson Zheng
      Co-Founder Pylon

      Nelson is the co-founder of Pylon, a Startmate portfolio company. He is a serial entrepreneur having previously founded startups Saru and Art of Space. He holds a dual Bachelor of Engineering and Commerce from UNSW.
      Seiya

      Seiya Takeda
      Co-Founder V-KAIWA

      Seiya is the co-founder of V-KAIWA, a Founder 10x accelerator portfolio company. He has held digital focused positions with UNSW, General Assembly, Commonwealth Bank, Caitre'd and Microsoft.

      Startup Company Portfolio

      Startups formed and supported during the Innovation Dojo Program

      V-KAIWA

      ChewMonGo

      Rumi Tech

      QuipTravel

      Lighthouse

      BeacoHealth

      Our partners

      Our team

      Our team maintains an effective mix of development experience and seasoned leadership.

      Joshua Flannery
      Connector Extraordinairre

      Working with Japanese colleagues in Sydney and Japan since 1997 in Sydneys first Sushi Train restaurant, Joshua has experience as a teacher, marketing executive and entrepreneur in Japan including as co-founder for StudyLink K.K. and Product Manager for the Japan-Australia StudyLink Cup. He is employed at UNSW Innovations to manage the startup programs for the university and is an advisory board member for Asia-focused co-working space Haymarket HQ and Singapore based startup QLC.io . He is also an advisor for female led startups in the Springboard Enterprises Australia accelerator program.

      Kaoru Nishinakagawa
      Global Strategy Guru

      Kaoru is an entrepreneurial Corporate Relationship Manager with 12 years of global experience in developing and executing customized account plans and marketing strategy to increase sales volume, market share and relevance in the marketplace.

      With in-depth knowledge of multinational business together with an innovative approach she provides significant strategic value to stakeholders and holds the ability to leverage industry trends to shape the best new product solutions and approaches.

      Kaoru is a proven magician when it comes to listening, speaking, visualising and execution.

      Ayumi Mizoshiri
      Engineering Prophecy

      Ayumi is a Web/Mobile Apps developer with a wealth of experience developing for startups and other innovative projects across Japan and Australia.
      He founded IT consulting company - sazae.com.au for small & middle size of businesses. He also founded the Japan Australia IT Group (JAIT) which has grown to over 260 members since humble beginnings in 2009. Ayumi is the technical powerhouse behind our team with strong experience as an engineer for the likes of Pygg and Pollenizer.

      Tomoyuki Hachigo
      Creator of Opportunities

      Tomoyuki leads our business development efforts at Innovation Dojo. He is a startup entrepreneur and a lawyer with experience working in the legal industry since 2009. Passionate about changing the business of law, in 2016 he co-founded sprintlaw - a new kind of law firm providing easy and affordable legal services to startups and small businesses. Previously, he was an M&A lawyer and a legal technology specialist at Clayton Utz, advising both Australian and Japanese corporate clients. Having grown up in Sydney and born to Japanese parents, Tomoyuki has a personal connection to both Australia and Japan and is fluent in English and Japanese.

      Contact

      General inquiries or comments (in English or Japanese) are welcome at info@innovationdojo.com.au



      Innovation Dojo