SMEC AI opens applications for fifth AI Pathfinder cohort
ARN covers SMEC AI opening applications for the fifth AI Pathfinder cohort under the federal AI Adopt program.
By Sasha Karen · First published by ARN. Republished with permission.
The Small to Medium Enterprise Centre of AI (SMEC AI), an AI adoption centre, has opened submissions for its fifth wave of applicants for its AI Pathfinder program, offering help to take a solution through to fruition.
The program consists of a free online accelerator over eight weeks for Australians who work in or run a business to launch AI products to solve business problems.
Successful applications work through the proves of building a minimum viable product, applying current AI tools, validating a concept with customers, and pitching an AI start up.
SMEC AI is funded by the federal government via its AI Adopt program, which was launched in December 2023 to fund five centres throughout the country to offer free training to eligible businesses.
The centre’s managing director, Andrew Lai, said the AI Pathfinder program exists to fill in the gaps largely missed by national conversations.
“The government has been clear that Australia should be a nation of makers and not just takers,” he said. “There has never been a better time for Australians to build.
“With that said, you no longer need to be a technologist to start an AI company, you just need to have domain knowledge. Australia has hundreds of thousands of people who know a problem worth solving inside out and have never once thought of themselves as a founder.
“That is the gap Pathfinder was built for, and it is why we are opening it as wide as we can this time.”
He added that while some AI programs teach theory or sells tools, the program avoids both of these aspects.
“Over eight weeks people build something, speak to real customers, and find out whether it works,” Lai said. “Some of them come in with an idea and leave with a business. Others find out in week three that the idea was wrong, which is also worth eight weeks of anyone’s time.”
The four previous cohorts resulted in 502 graduates, with two being accessibility technology provider aXai and IBM Maximo specialist Valueztech.
According to aXai founder Annette Andersen, the program gave the opportunity for her to reach out and meet like-minded individuals.
“I normally would go into a situation like that and listen and never meet anybody, but I networked with heaps of people very fast,” she said. “It was the sort of stuff that you won’t get in a university course.”
Meanwhile, Valueztech founder and CEO Biplab Das Choudhury was admitted to the program with his business already established.
“We used to think of a problem which we have faced and try to create a solution around it, but it is not always my problem, it is somebody else’s problem,” he said. “The Pathfinder program helped us think about what a customer problem looks like, [looking] at it from the customer’s lens.”
Applications for the fifth cohort are open until 21 October.