Desert Knowl­edge Aus­tralia has received $300k in grant fund­ing from the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Government’s Depart­ment of Indus­try, Tourism and Trade to research, design and pilot a pro­gram to sup­port devel­op­ment of Indige­nous enter­pris­es across Cen­tral Australia.

The first objec­tive of this pro­gram is to con­duct thor­ough research on both Abo­rig­i­nal busi­ness­es and busi­ness sup­port ser­vices across the region to eval­u­ate where the gaps in busi­ness devel­op­ment sup­port are, and how they can be filled. 

Once iden­ti­fy­ing key areas where the pro­gram can best add val­ue, it will col­lab­o­rate with com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, entre­pre­neurs and sup­port ser­vices to design an appro­pri­ate devel­op­ment pro­gram for com­mu­ni­ty-based enterprises.

The co-designed pro­gram will be pilot­ed with a select group of Abo­rig­i­nal busi­ness­es and emer­gent entre­pre­neurs through­out Cen­tral Aus­tralia. The deliv­ery for­mat and key focus areas will be deter­mined in the research and co-design phases.

The Enter­prise Devel­op­ment pro­gram will be facil­i­tat­ed by Jamie Toyne, who grew up in Mparn­twe (Alice Springs) and is the founder and for­mer CEO of an inter­na­tion­al busi­ness con­sult­ing group called Dealflow Bro­ker­age. Jamie start­ed Dealflow whilst liv­ing in San Fran­cis­co to help entre­pre­neurs start, devel­op, grow and exit their busi­ness. Since return­ing home after 13 years abroad, Jamie has been sup­port­ing local entre­pre­neurs and indige­nous organ­i­sa­tions to devel­op sus­tain­able self-gen­er­at­ed income streams.