Welcome to The Never Ending Startup Podcast JDNEST Ep7– Startup Journey and Stories. A special Interview by Dr Jon with Avril Dunn about startup- EI Platform. Avril describes the platform as being like a ‘wearable device’ for a building and it provides convenient and continuous access to business energy data in real time. Avril  is co-founder of an accelerator startup developing EI Platform with the Integrated Innovation Network (I2N) at the University of Newcastle. Dr Jon focuses on key themes of the story so far,  journey, inspiration and the future. Clean Tech Solutions. Built to last.
This JDNEST Episode's Central Question:
Will your startup fail but rise from it's own ashes as something new?

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

Kahlil Gibran 1883-1931 On Reason and Passion
The Never Ending Startup Podcast: Lessons for Modern Startup Journey & Stories of Longevity
The podcast  shares Dr Jon’s insightful entrepreneurial journey, history and inspirations.

It includes interviews with ‘accelerator startups’ from The University of Newcastle’s I2N Innovation Hub about their journey and inspirations.

It also covers the state of Australia’s innovation ecology and lessons for new startups.

The podcast and book build a social and entrepreneurial framework for startup journey and  longevity.

In this episode we concentrate on the theme of startup journey and story, the inspirations and the future.
This episode covers: An Interview with Avril Dunn  and new energy and clean-tech innovation EI Platform
We are also proud to announce a special interview with Avril Dunn who is the co- founder of EI Platform, which tracks and manages energy use in buildings.

The EI Platform is an accelerator startup with  The University of Newcastle’s I2N Innovation Hub

Avril describes the platform as being like a ‘wearable device’ for a building and it provides convenient and continuous access to business energy data in real time.

The platform also integrates AI to provide smart data on energy use and is a powerful tool in the future of energy and sustainability

Avril's favourite song for the entrepreneurial journey:
https://youtu.be/gYkACVDFmeg?feature=shared
What is  The Never Ending Startup Podcast About?
The Never Ending Startup is the story of award winning researcher, writer, innovator, historian  and entrepreneur Dr Jonathan Drane and his journey through the world of  high rise construction, property development and then into  start up ventures, the genesis of which he discovered only recently, had its inception over half a century earlier.
Dr Jon’s Startup Journey and who inspired him
His first start up called Optimum Search was established in 1993 and still stands today with a deep quarter century history of entrepreneurial achievement and ‘catalyst research’ with some failure along the way, the latter being a central part of the DNA of its success.

The story starts in the midst of his post war 1950s upbringing as a hot housed adolescent who was introduced by his father to a strange mixture of  ‘chemistry sets’ , explorer Jacques Cousteau, physicist Professor Julius Sumner Miller and Australia’s Professor Harry Messel with the latter’s famous blue science book being in nearly every high school class room.
How History of Innovation guided Dr Jon’s startup journey and stories
In this way the story also  provides a lived ‘side history’ of Australia’s post war innovation path,