Griffith Innovation Centre heralds a new era of collaboration and entrepreneurship

Professor Carolyn Evans at the official opening of the Griffith Innovation Centre

Griffith University has opened a flagship innovation space at the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct, acknowledging the importance of innovative thinking and an entrepreneurial mindset in solving current and future problems.

Professor Carolyn Evans

Griffith University Vice Chancellor and President, Professor Carolyn Evans, said the opening of the Griffith Innovation Centre (GIC) by Ms Meaghan Scanlon MP, Assistant Minister for Tourism Industry Development and Griffith alumnus, marked the next step on the university’s path to embedding a culture of entrepreneurship into its teaching and research.

“Griffith Innovation Centre will be a highly adaptable, teaching, prototyping and events space designed to bring together students from all disciplines, staff and wider industry to deliver best practice innovation and enterprise learning,” said Professor Evans.

The presence of the Griffith Innovation Centre (GIC) will ensure Griffith continues to expand its’ innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in a way that aligns with both the Federal Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda and the State Government’s Advance Queensland policy frameworks.

The new space is co-located with the coast’s newest Innovation space, COHORT, within the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge precinct alongside a broad range of startups and businesses including IntelliHQ, a government, university and industry partnership exploring the usage of AI in Healthcare.

“This connection to industry and networking opportunities within the Health & Knowledge Precinct and COHORT, will allow students to collaborate with some of the coast’s most innovative companies, through regular events and masterclasses,” Professor Evans said.

“It is also ideally located adjacent to Griffith’s planned $80 million Advanced Design and Protoyping Technologies Institute (ADaPT).

Professor Carolyn Evans and Meaghan Scanlon MP, Assistant Minister for Tourism Industry Development, talk to students about advanced design and prototyping technologies.

“This dedicated, flexible educational and working space for students and research staff also has a particular focus on equipping PhD students to be entrepreneurial for careers outside academia and traditional corporate confines.”

Program delivery will include the US National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps program based on the global-best-practice Lean LaunchPad program developed by Stanford and Berkeley universities as Griffith’s capstone course.

Other programs to be offered include the 3 Day Startup, the world’s leading experiential entrepreneurship program, and the Design Thinking Bootcamp, developed by Stanford’s world-renowned school.

The facility will also seek to engage the university’s co-joint clinical staff at the Gold Coast University Hospital to translate healthcare innovation from lab to bedside.

QCA alumnus and lecturer Simon DeGroot working on the mural.

Many programs will be extra-curricular, breaking through disciplinary boundaries associated with curriculum delivery to bring creative thinking to large and ‘wicked’ problems and incubate entrepreneurial opportunities and social enterprise solutions.

Programs will run from idea generation and exploration, through business validation and prototyping, to execution and early-stage incubation of new businesses.

The GIC will be a vibrant and inspiring space to work and learn, with a huge 5m x 16m mural wall created by Queensland College of Art (QCA) alumnus and sessional lecturer Simon DeGroot providing artistic inspiration for creative ideas and next-generation technologies.

Economic Development Queensland contributed $60,000 to the development of the Griffith Innovation Centre.