Nick and I have been at MEGA for four weeks now, going through the program with our idea, The Coworking Sociatea. Nick has done a great job of updating our front facing website, which can currently be found here. Through our time in the MEGA program we’ve been privy to some great mentors and great learning discussions. We’ve been given some great ideas for our product, and some great inspiration from the mentors and presenters, such as:

“You’ve got 24 hours a day. You take away eight for sleep and you have 16 left. How are you using them?” – Ben Marsh

“Change your attitude, change your life?” – Ben Marsh

“Luck is when opportunity and preparation meet.” – Ben Marsh

“Be phenomenal or be forgotten.” – Ben Marsh

“People who are talented at art are just talented. This is a lie.”  – Shane Bevin

“Turn up to events as often as you can.” – Shane Bevin

“Most people I know, when they do brainstorming – it’s more of a light shower.” – Shane Bevin

“Think outside the square, but know that the square is there.” – Shane Bevin

“Think in opposites. What is the problem? What isn’t the problem?” – Shane Bevin

“No one really cares about that other than you. They don’t care about how cool the programming is or the different things it can do. They only really care about the value to them is.” – Gavin Artz

“Ideas are cheap and your ideas will probably change. The important thing is taking your idea to market.” – Gavin Artz

“Money doesn’t just flow into your bank account when you’re running your own business.” – Tobi Pearce

“You can have the best product in the world but if it’s not put in front of the right people…” – Tobi Pearce

“The goal for any business should be to grow and get better.” – Tobi Pearce

In July this year, I participated in Unleashed (or as it’s known in other states, Govhack) with my friend Nick. Unleashed is an open data competition where competitors are encouraged to mash up different data sets to create something valuable and useful. Nick came up with our great idea called The Coworking Society. The Coworking Society aims to connect independent workers through Adelaide City Council’s free wifi network by providing them with a place to meet and network.

Unleashed Adelaide took place over a weekend and was very much a hackathon of sorts. We had a lot of fun, and met a lot of awesome people who are also passionate about open data and making awesome things.

Last weekend the awards ceremony was held, and Team WarTapir was successful in being highly commended nationally, as well as winning two awards – the Majoran Co-working Mega Prize and the Best Entrepreneurial Concept by a Youth Team. The Majoran Mega Prize means that we get to be a part of the Mega program run by Majoran Distillery where we get to further develop our idea and business model! This started on Thursday last week and is very exciting, so expect further updates on this!

Team WarTapir cleaned up!