Thomas’ word with wise
Education aid gets big boost
THE start-up ecosystem at Runway Geelong has launched a young entrepreneur whose multiplayer crossword platform, Quiz Words, is being hailed for its global syndication potential.
Quiz Words, which has been designed as an education tool for children, has been picked up by News Corp.
Thomas Molinari, 24, turned to Runway founder Nick Stanley a year ago after being unable to find support for his start-up while operating from his home town in the Latrobe Valley.
Mr Stanley provided the mentoring and connections to associates who helped refine, develop and facilitate the commercialisation of Quiz Words.
The Runway process, which includes challenging a founder’s business proposition, has seen Quiz Words tailored into a web-based studentteacher resource that can engage a classroom of participants in crosswords customised for the curriculum,
It is also available as a stand-alone, multiplayer game.
Two businesses based at Runway, web and app developer Enterprise Monkey and marketing agency Arthur St Digital, were instrumental in building a minimal viable product to get it off the ground.
Mr Molinari, who has retained about a 70 per cent interest, is now on a mission to grow his business.
“I want to keep it going, I want to expand it, hopefully go globally with it,” he said.
Arthur St Digital director Peter Clark, who connected Mr Molinari to the leaders of News Corp’s Kids News, said Quiz Words was a great evolution of crosswords, a much-loved feature of newspapers and digital media sites.
“From a commercial point of view, the syndication potential of Quiz Words across digital media outlets around the world is almost unlimited and having the opportunity to launch it on Kids News, a website used by schools across the country, is a great start,” Mr Clark said.
He said sudoku had a similar start in The Times in London and was now syndicated around the world.
“Quiz Words has the potential to be a global puzzle game phenomenon and an attractive asset for any digital media company looking to attract and retain audiences,” Mr Clark said.
Enterprise Monkey chief executive Aamir Qutub said it represented a modern way to engage students in the classroom using game-style technology.
Mr Molinari acknowledged the importance of working with the Runway network and being introduced to Mr Clark, Mr Qutub and lawyer Simon Quirk.
“I would not have got to where I am now without being here and all the connections they have,” he said.
Mr Stanley said it was an example of how the Runway Geelong ecosystem worked to help develop entrepreneurs beyond those engaged in its business accelerator program.
“It’s a great example of how we are able to connect the right people to help entrepreneurs with executing their vision,” he said.
“Thomas had exhausted the potential options he had to pursue his dream and vision.”
Mr Stanley said opportunity was central to being a successful entrepreneur.
“You might have the best idea but unless you connect the dots sometimes it just can’t happen,” he said.
“It speaks to what great potential exists in regional locations and how Geelong’s leading in that regard.” governments, seeking to develop and support start-up activity in their areas. DANIEL Pelliccia is starting to be noticed for his start-up, Rubens Technologies, which uses a combination of lowcost sensors and analytics along the supply chain to improve fresh fruit export opportunities.
A participant in this year’s Runway Geelong program, Mr Pelliccia was one of only three start-ups invited to pitch at a Telstra Labs forum last week.
In his pitch, he discussed how Rubens was going to improve decision-making about harvest, storage and distribution of fruit and how this would improve automation of the supply chain.
Telstra Labs is home to Australia’s first publicly accessible Internet of Things lab. It promotes itself as space for collaboration between its teams, partners and customers and Australia’s next generation of innovative thinkers.
The event also included a panel discussion on future ethical implications of artificial intelligence, when applied to autonomous vehicles or other autonomous machines.