Team Liftt takes home first prize at our uplifting third Ideas Challenge Pitch Night💡

On Thursday 25 September, we farewelled Term 3 with an exhilarating night of student startup pitches and creativity. We had 10 teams, representing 8 schools, who had successfully completed the T3 Ideas Challenge and made the Top-10 according to our judging panel.

They competed for $1,000 in cash prizes on the night and all benefited from valuable real-world feedback. It was an absolute blast for everyone involved! Keep scrolling to see all the prize winners and finalists who joined Liftt at the big pitch night...👇

The T3 Ideas Challenge was a free, 6-week (part self-paced, part instructor-led) online skills-building program for emerging innovators and entrepreneurs. It involved three extension tasks, which were assessed and each resulted in a microcredential if passed. With the addition of a fourth certificate for pitch night teams, 272 individual microcredentials were unlocked by our hard-working student cohort!

Big shout-outs must also go out to our student emcee, Mahi for keeping the event on track, and of course our judging panel made up of Macquarie University and MQ Incubator luminaries: Melissa Ryan - Director Incubation & Entrepreneurship, Jenny Rickard - Manager Undergraduate Future Students, May Ku - Founder of Reev, and Dave Sammut - Founder & MD of Loop Hydrometallurgy. Their job was not an easy one!

Here's a quick video summarising the program and the pitch night event:

Now, let's introduce you to the finalists!

• Boomerang Bins: Helping local communities cut food waste by turning leftovers into valuable compost.
• Botany Quest: Grow your dream, green your world. Plant-powered progress for you and the planet.
• BrightBuddy: An AI-powered learning buddy that personalises education, builds confidence, and makes study fun with safe, smart, and gamified tutoring.
• Flourish: Empowering students through gamified wellness, Flourish blends avatars, gardens, and daily reflections to make self-care engaging, accessible, and joyful, so everyone can truly Flourish. 
• INTEGRATE: Empowering students to master AI ethically and critically through workshops and expert guidance.
• Liftt: Smart demand forecasting for small businesses. Predict busy days, optimise staffing, boost profits – so you can focus on what matters most.
• Open Ward: An AI-powered platform that analyses patient feedback, then provides clinics/hospitals with tailored insights, detailed breakdowns and actionable strategies to improve care.
• Re:Cycle: Re:Cycle creates manual wheelchairs that are waterproof, comfortable and eco-friendly, using recycled bike parts, to unlock independence for every user.
• Reel News: Big News Made Bite-sized.
• YouTwo: Connecting people around the world, anywhere, anytime - without the scroll!

Here's a bit more of a look at the composition of the finalist teams:

And just a reminder about how the broader cohort looked:

And now... 🥁our prize winners!

Huge congratulations to our prize winners, finalists and all program participants for such an awesome effort throughout Term 3 in the Ideas Challenge!

The Ideas Challenge will be back in Term 1, 2026 and applications are open throughout Term 4. If you're an educator and would like us to speak at an assembly or year group meeting about this fully-funded but increasingly competitive opportunity, just let us know.

Here is the application link for any interested students and teachers to share (applications are now open).

About the Secondary Schools Program  

Macquarie University Incubator and Young Wisdom teamed up in late 2023 to create a range of entrepreneurial skills-building opportunities for young innovators and their supporters. To date, we've worked with over 8,900 students and more than 80 different schools across NSW.

Macquarie University Incubator is a leading community of innovators being supported with facilities, mentorship, events and programming designed to help them launch and scale their groundbreaking ventures globally.

Young Wisdom is a Sydney-based social enterprise offering entrepreneurial upskilling opportunities and support services on a mission to help young founders launch and grow their new ventures with confidence.

Any interested teachers, parents and students can subscribe to receive our email updates to make sure you get all the latest info straight to your inbox!

See you next time✌️

From Shahe and the Ideas Challenge team