Desert Knowl­edge Aus­tralia (DKA) has signed a three-year MOU with iAc­cel­er­ate, a busi­ness accel­er­a­tor and incu­ba­tor pro­gram based at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wol­lon­gong. DKA and iAc­cel­er­ate will work togeth­er to sup­port inno­va­tion in desert and remote Aus­tralia. Ear­ly project scop­ing includes the devel­op­ment of an inno­va­tion and incu­ba­tion hub at the Desert Knowl­edge Precinct, the 73 hectare prop­er­ty in Alice Springs where DKA serves as landlord. 

The three-year MOU was signed last month by DKA CEO Lau­ren Gan­ley and iAc­cel­er­ate CEO Omar Khal­i­fa. Ms Gan­ley said the col­lab­o­ra­tion with iAc­cel­er­ate would help DKA sup­port region­al busi­ness­es by pro­vid­ing access to men­tor­ship, exper­tise, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al mar­kets, edu­ca­tion and resources. 

“Our part­ner­ship with iAc­cel­er­ate is a great way to kick­start a Cen­tral Aus­tralian incu­ba­tor which will pro­vide hands-on sup­port to small busi­ness­es as well as access to seed fund­ing and invest­ment funds. With access to the right sup­port, even the small­est busi­ness can grow into some­thing sus­tain­able and com­pet­i­tive,” Ms Gan­ley said. 

“By work­ing with all our part­ners and col­lab­o­rat­ing with oth­er inno­va­tors we increase our shared impact, which means bet­ter out­comes for the peo­ple of the desert.” she said. 

iAc­cel­er­ate has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in grow­ing strong busi­ness­es through its busi­ness and inno­va­tion incu­ba­tor, and is ready to bring that exper­tise to region­al Australia. 

“Com­bin­ing DKA’s con­nec­tions with our expe­ri­ence in busi­ness accel­er­a­tor and incu­ba­tor pro­grams will be the next step for iAc­cel­er­ate to build a thriv­ing region­al­ly-focussed entre­pre­neur­ial ecosys­tem,” Mr. Khal­i­fa said. 

“We help bud­ding entre­pre­neurs take an inno­v­a­tive idea and build it into a sus­tain­able busi­ness that also has a social con­science by pro­vid­ing an accel­er­a­tion pro­gram and access to nation­al and inter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tors, researchers, investors and mar­kets,” Mr Khal­i­fa said.