Innovation is heating up on the Sunshine Coast 
Sunshine Coast Regional Innovation Program (SCRIPT) releases 2018 Annual Stakeholder Report
SCRIPT – a government and community-sponsored initiative to promote innovation – invested in six new Sunshine Coast projects in its first year, creating job opportunities and helping local entrepreneurs turn their ideas into commercial realities.
The organisation’s Annual Stakeholder Report 2018, released to coincide with SCRIPT’s first anniversary, highlights the important role it plays in growing innovation, business capacity and employment across the region.
Regional Innovation Coordinator Coby Sullivan said SCRIPT had received funding proposals for 12 innovation projects in its first year. It had invested in six, ranging from an e-games sports tournament to a medtech accelerator.
“We’ve engaged with more than 600 people through innovation and business events across the region and this is just the beginning,” Ms Sullivan said. “The past 12 months has seen six new job opportunities arise thanks to the SCRIPT program.”
In that time, SCRIPT partner organisations grew to 31, an indication of the support of local organisations for fuelling innovation on the Sunshine Coast.
SCRIPT began with Advance Queensland Regional Innovation funding, which was matched by more than 30 Sunshine Coast organisations. The initiative seeks to promote and invest in innovative programs that make a positive difference to the community.
“We are seeking original proposals across the pillars of health and wellbeing, sustainability and environment, food and agribusiness, creative industries and smart cities,” Ms Sullivan said.
“We are seeing interstate businesses migrate to the Sunshine Coast,” she said. “There is also an emergence of start-ups choosing to base themselves here, given our thriving innovation ecosystem and the entrepreneurial support available.”
SCRIPT wants the Sunshine Coast to become internationally-recognised as an entrepreneurial region where organisations can work together to accomplish great things.
Read the SCRIPT Annual Stakeholder Report 2018
