I got an email last week, it just read ‘you need to go to this’, and after scrolling down I found that ‘this’ was a meeting about creating a group called Start-Up Capricorn. It’s not a political group; actually there were no politicians present, government employees, about 13 out of the 18 who attended, and everyone was over 25 years of age, most over 45. I’ll get to why this is significant. The pitch for Start-Up Capricorn is to create a favourable environment for ideas to be realised; ideas that can become viable and create new jobs if they receive the right support and encouragement. My previous columns on creating a Youth Entrepreneurship Economic Zone and as a co-organiser of RING’s C2C (Communication to Careers) initiative resulted in me getting the email. The discussion at the meeting identified for an idea to be viable it needs to solve a problem enough people (or businesses) are willing to pay fairly for – demand. The other was the people likely to have the ideas and be willing to put their neck (money and reputation) on the line in turning them into reality were going to be under 25 years of age. Primarily because they had less to risk and stronger belief they can change the world. After all Zuckerberg did why can’t they. This therefore clearly identified a predicament with the group, no representation from the under 25’s. Also for Start-Up Capricorn to be successful it has to be community driven. The proportion of government workers representation in this embryonic group has to be reversed from the 70+% to less than 30%. That doesn’t mean decrease the government workers; the number attending needs to increase. Last Thursday RING held a C2C at Rockhampton Girls Grammar School. Again I feel confident to say that those local business people who attended were impressed with the post secondary school aspirations of the students. Working in agriculture was prominent. As was the appreciation the role technology will play in environmental sustainability and how they want to be leaders in this new frontier in primary production. Where in the past I’ve used this column to encourage business people to attend C2C, now I ask students to consider being involved in Start-Up Capricorn. Google ‘start-up weekend’ and see what Start-Up Capricorn would like to see happen here in our region. It’s going global and already happened in Mackay. It can happen here if those with the ideas (under 25’s) get involved. The next Start-Up Capricorn meeting is Wednesday 4.00pm March 9 at CQUni Refectory. Visit www.ring.org.au to check for any changes to this closer to the date. If you got an idea that you’ve considered developing come along find out how Start-Up Capricorn could make it happen and in doing so stimulate job opportunities.