The Founders New Wave program addresses the under-representation of women in entrepreneurship by empowering UNSW students, staff or alumni who identify as women to launch startups.
Addressing the underrepresentation of women in entrepreneurship, New Wave offers UNSW students, staff and alumni who identify as women, at any stage of their journey, access to skills-building workshops, expert masterclasses and industry-leading mentors to form, refine and test their startup ideas.
New Waves runs for two weeks, twice annually in the term breaks during which participants will:
- Form teams with like-minded women and collaborate on an idea
- Learn essential entrepreneurial skills like pitching, leadership and design thinking
- Learn from experts who will deliver master classes on how to create a startup
- Be guided by industry leading mentors
- Pitch at an online showcase event to industry leaders and win amazing prizes (including $1,500 for the winning team)
- Build confidence, make friends and have fun!
New Wave is for UNSW students, staff or alumni who identify as women.
You don't need a startup idea to apply. Sign up as a team (optimal number three (3) members), all team members must be UNSW affiliated (student, professional staff, academic staff or alumni), or on your own and we will help you form a team.
To be eligible for New Wave, you must:
- Identify as a woman; and are an
- Existing UNSW student enrolled in an Undergraduate, Masters or PhD program; or an
- Alumni of UNSW (i.e. graduated from an undergraduate or postgraduate UNSW program); or
- UNSW academic staff (subject to the terms outlined in the UNSW staff startup policy); or
- UNSW professional staff (subject to the terms in the staff startup policy); or
- 18 years or older.
Cohort 7
22 March - Applications open
15 April - Information Session
29 April - Applications close
30 April - Successful Applicants announced
13 May (evening) - Program kick off event
17 May - Week 1 of programming
24 May - Week 2 of programming
2 June (evening) - Top 10 teams selected for finals
10 June (evening) - Showcase pitch event
For all enquiries related to New Wave, please contact the New Wave Program Manager, Kristen Phillips.
- UNSW Innovations launches The New Wave initiative to encourage female students to take up entrepreneurship (Mary Lui via Startup Daily, 2016)
- New Wave Founders Finals Night Showcases Exceptional UNSW Women Entrepreneurs (UNSW Founders, 2017)
- UNSW program takes on start-up gender gap (Staff Writer at Westpac, 2017)
- Catching The New Wave (Get Education, 2017)
- Increasing the chances for women entrepreneurs (Ruby Connection, 2018)
- Turning a high school idea into an innovation for colour blindness, (David Zhou via Medium 2019)
- I tried being a student female founder for 2 weeks - here's what I learnt (Nitika Midha via Medium, 2019)
- Luksea Talks Starting Out (UNSW Founders, 2019)
- New Wave winner, Luksea, receives NSW Government Minimal Viable Product grant and takes startup to next stage (Kristen Phillips, UNSW Founders, 2020)
- UNSW Founders announces startup winner (Inside UNSW, 2020)
- Luksea first ocean test is a success ((Kristen Phillips, UNSW Founders, 2020)
- The inspiring women inspiring women (Kristen Phillips, UNSW Founders, 2020)
- New speaker series launched to empower next generation women entrepreneurs (Kristen Phillips, UNSW Founders, 2020)
- Startup with size inclusive sports bras wins UNSW Founders New Wave Showcase (Kristen Phillips, UNSW Founders, 2020)
-
Tech moguls and best friends inspiring next generation women entrepreneurs at UNSW (Kristen Phillips, UNSW Founders, 2020)
- Women's Business (Tina Wu, Pandora's Box No.1| UNSW Women's Collective, 2020)
- UNSW startup givvable gets backing from CBA and Microsoft (Commbank, 2020)
- Meet the founders behind Givvable, the for-purpose start-up helping big businesses create impact (Victoria baker, Vogue Codes 2020)
New Wave 2020 Mentors
2020 New Wave participants will be mentored by these incredible business women: