VoxieBox, a South Australian product which generates 3D imagery similar to that made famous by R2D2 in Star Wars, picked up the Silver ‘eNVIe’ award and won prizes worth over $12,000 at Flinders New Venture Institute’s Venture Dorm awards last night at Lexus of Adelaide.

The Venture Dorm Graduation Awards and Innovation Showcase awards (eNVIes) showcased the top six ideas from the Semester 1 2015 Venture Dorm program, which provides an educational environment for people to learn how to create their own entrepreneurial venture.

The selected entrepreneurs were chosen from the current crop of graduates, who have all taken part in the 12-week Venture Dorm course, and pitched for the top prizes on the night to a panel of Australian business leaders.

The judges included Karlene Maywald, from the New Venture Institute Advisory Council; Martin Keetels, Business Development Manager, Konica Minolta; Megan Jongebloed, Partner, Cowell Clarke Commercial Lawyers; Roberto Cardone, Founder of CIBO Espresso and Managing Director of SPQR Holdings; and Matthew Salier, Director, New Venture Institute.

Included in the $27,500 of prizes on offer was a $5,000 NVI SXSW Acceleration Award, which was won by Sarah Gun with her company BioBloom allowing her to join an NVI delegation to the South by South West start-up festival in Austin, Texas.

A second travel scholarship, the Konica Minolta Business Acceleration Award, valued at $5,000, was won by Will Tamblyn and Gavin Smith of Voxiebox, and will see the team heading to Konica Minolta Innovation Centre in Singapore, where they will spend a week refining their business.

NVI also gave winners a free place in the newly established eNVIsion incubator space, where they will continue to be actively supported by NVI.

Flinders University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Colin Stirling, who attended the awards, said Venture Dorm helped entrepreneurs to build their own businesses from scratch, and that the program extended its reach beyond Flinders students and graduates into the Southern and greater Adelaide regions.

“Venture Dorm is a great educational environment for people who want to learn how entrepreneurs build new ventures and then create one themselves – that is, taking or finding an idea, finding a viable business model which is scalable and repeatable, from scratch, in less than 12 weeks,” said Professor Stirling.

“It provides a hands-on, learner-centred, inquiry based, immersive and experiential process, where you search for a business model that works for you.”

Matthew Salier, Director of the New Venture Institute, said: “The ability for NVI to provide these amazing travel prizes helps us build “born global” start-ups here in Adelaide.

“Exposing our passionate entrepreneurs to global markets is an important part of the Venture Dorm program, we believe this will ensure their start-ups survive and thrive in a changing market.”

Venture Dorm recently combined with Adelaide’s Majoran co-working community in a move that allows 120 start-ups to take part every year. Majoran’s MEGA 12-week entrepreneur program shares a joint curriculum with Venture Dorm, which run at Majoran’s city and the NVI’s Tonsley locations.

Adelaide City Council’s Deputy Lord Mayor, Houssam Abiad, was Master of Ceremonies at the event, while David Spiers, MP, Member for Bright, topped a VIP guest list.

About the Flinders New Venture Institute’s first 18 months:

• 84 start-ups created, 72 still active
• 32 full time jobs created
• More than $500K in investments
• 950+ students, entrepreneurs & innovators trained
• 25 Inspiring speakers, network of 180+ business leaders, over 2400 hours of volunteer time
• 15 SME innovation workshops
• 175 Live Student Consulting Projects with Adelaide based SME’s
• 8 national and global partnerships