“Pivot was born out of this idea that we can hold a world-class event in Geelong. We didn’t want to call it The Geelong Digital Summit – we wanted it to be something more forward thinking,” says Pivot Summit founder Leighton Wells.
Back for its sophomore year, the Pivot Summit will be returning to Geelong this December. The Summit, which focuses on emerging technologies and entrepreneurship, features a stack of well established speakers and provides an opportunity for people with interest in the industry to network and collaborate, which is the major focus for the event.
“We are trying to get people to network with one another and hopefully produce some commercial success along the way by connecting people. There were some good examples of that last year; we had a guy from Melbourne come down who was launching a product called ‘Air-buldge’ which is like a Bluetooth travel lock for your luggage,” Wells says.
“He was interviewed by Robert Scoble who is one of the US’s top pitchers who was down last year and Robert posted that interview on his Facebook page which has about 60,000 followers and the guy raised 60,000 dollars in four days, which was his target, and then went on to raise 200,000 dollars. You don’t know what’s going to happen, but by putting people in a room, it is hopefully the sort of outcome we can create to be ongoing.”
According to Wells, Geelong is a great place to host the event due to our vibrant technology industry.
“The tech industry is really on a big growth curve in Geelong. You have the downward spiral of manufacturing in Geelong and what seem to be been embraced are technology companies, software companies, app developers, and digital agencies. There is an appetite within the community for something like this, so the community support from organisations has been significant.”
Wells stresses the importance of females within the tech-industry, and how that has been a large focus of the forthcoming event.
“One of the things we have really tried to do this year as well is to provide fair representation to the women in the tech sector. In terms of gender equality and diversity, one of the things we see in a more general sense is that women in the tech sector are represented at 20 per cent of tech jobs. A lot of other tech conferences really avoid the whole factor of women in the industry, which is a real shame, because you can see form the line-up we have put together, that there is a lot of very influential women in the technology sector.”
As the summits second year running, the event has expanded into a two-day event. According to Wells, this expansion forwards the summits goals for the future.
“There is now a second day being held around the arts precinct in Geelong Arts precinct near the library and Johnson’s Park. It’s gone from a one-day event to a two-day event within a year and we are hoping that keeps expanding. We are kind of modelling it off SXSW in Austin, Texas that is actually now 10 days with three overlapping festivals. That’s kind of the aspiration and it is certainly what we are seeing from a community support perspective.”
Written by Alex Callan
When & Where: Pivot Summit @ Various Venues, Geelong – December 2
