Entrepreneurship for Women PhD Students

Dr Amir Armanious is a subject coordinator and lecturer of economics and finance subjects with over a decade of academic experience. His teaching experience covers undergraduate, Master's, MBA, and Ph.D. programmes. Amir has developed diversified experience in lecturing at local, regional, and international universities. Amir taught hundreds of courses, thousands of hours of face-to-face classes and defended tens of MBA theses in addition to supervising and examining tens of graduation projects and honours thesis in economics and finance fields. Amir received the following teaching awards: • UTS Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Excellence Award • UTS Top 20 Best Outperforming Academics Spring 2019 • UTS Top 20 Best Outperforming Academics Autumn 2019 • UTS Top 20 Best Outperforming Academics Autumn 2018 • SIBT Teaching Excellence Award Amir believes that education is the best investment in oneself, consequently, he became insanely educated and earned 9 degrees and certificates as follows: • Ph.D. degree in applied finance • Ph.D. degree in financial economics • Master’s degree in finance • Master’s degree in economics • Master’s degree in strategic planning • Certified Financial Technician (CFTe) • Certified International Trade and Marketing Specialist (CITMS) • Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Associate Member • Bachelor’s degree in economics Amir participates in international conferences, workshops and published several working papers, books, and book chapters. Amir is a reviewer in journals and a coordinator of academic conferences. In addition, Amir has diversified professional experience as Amir works as a financial consultant for the United Nations, government institutions, MNCs, and start-ups. Amir worked as a financial consultant on projects that worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Jochen Schweitzer is Associate Professor of Strategy and Innovation and Director of Entrepreneurship at the UTS Business School. He also serves as the Faculty Director of UTS's Executive MBA and the Bachelor of Entrepreneurship (Honours). Trained as both an engineer and a social scientist, his work focuses on issues of strategy, entrepreneurship and innovation with a special interest in design thinking, emerging technologies and the future of work. Jochen was Visiting Scholar at Stanford University and Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) School of Design Thinking at Potsdam University. He has taught at the UTS schools of Design and Architecture, Macquarie University, Shanghai University and Sydney School of Entrepreneurship. Prior to becoming an academic, Jochen was a Principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers' Strategy practice. As an expert advisor, he provides insights into emerging trends, alternate perspectives and fresh ideas to a number of private and government organisations. Recent advisory roles included growing corporate innovation capabilities, developing strategic innovation performance, crowdsourcing ideas for climate adaptation in public transport, evaluating on-demand transport solutions, developing social entrepreneurship policy, and developing future of work skills and capabilities.

Martin Bliemel is the Director of Research at TD School (ex Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Martin's research interests include entrepreneurial networks, accelerators, education, research commercialization, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and the entrepreneurial university. In particular, his work on accelerators played a key role in the design of the $23m Incubator Support Programme by the Department of Industry, and the evaluation of the $150m Southern Cross Renewable Energy Fund by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) who are now acting on our recommendations. In 2020, Martin had the privilege to host the UTS Impact Studios 7+1-part podcast series, which was also featured as part of an article for The Conversation titled "Who cares about university research? The answer depends on its impacts" Martin's research has been published in several prestigious journals including Nature Nanotechnology, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Technovation, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Education+Training, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, and the Entrepreneurship Research Journal where one of his articles on entrepreneurship education is ERJ's most downloaded article. Martin is a recipient of the nationally competitive Office of Learning and Teaching Citation for "For preparing students studying management to become entrepreneurs by creating authentic and respectful learning experiences that immerse students in collaborative interactions with external stakeholders." He is a member of the advisory committee for the Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research Exchange (ACERE), a subcommittee and Expert Advisory Group member of the NSW Innovation & Productivity Council.

Murray Hurps is UTS' first Director of Entrepreneurship, tasked with growing the number of student-founded startups coming out of UTS and nurturing the Ultimo precinct's vibrant startup environment. Murray plays a key role in developing and sustaining pathways connecting UTS graduates and student founders to the startup ecosystem locally, regionally, and internationally, including commercial accelerators, venture capital and international destinations. Murray also leads initiatives to ensure Ultimo continues to expand its historical position as a significant contributor to Sydney's startup ecosystem. As part of the leadership team of the UTS Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit, led by Executive Director Professor Margaret Maile Petty, Murray contributes to the strategic direction of the unit, driven by a cross-faculty approach. Murray is passionate about Australian startups, and sees the biggest risk and opportunity for Australia to be the number of people launching scalable companies. He believes universities are uniquely positioned to move Australia's entrepreneurial needle in the right direction and is committed to ensuring UTS provides the best encouragement and support to the largest number of potential startup founders. Murray has a long list of credentials in the Australian startup ecosystem, with a 20-year career spanning an array of ventures and organisations. He is well-known for his role as CEO of Fishburners from 2014 to 2017, growing it into Australia's largest startup community from 100 desks to 750 desks and supporting 845 startups in that time. Prior to that, Murray co-founded and led Startup Muster, the largest survey of the Australian startup ecosystem, after 14 years of starting and building different Australian startups. Most recently he was Program Director for FUELD, Westpac's data-focused accelerator program. Murray remains a board member of Startup Muster, the Australian Information Industry Association, WorkVentures, Spark Festival, and an advisory board member for the Data Analytics Centre.

Sojen Pradhan is a lecturer at School of Professional Practice and Leadership with an extensive experience of over 25 years in teaching. He holds PhD in Computer Science and MBA from UTS. Previously he has completed MSc from Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal. His teaching has been well-received by both undergraduate and postgraduate students. He started his teaching career in Kathmandu, Nepal with profound involvement in organisational and governance decisions. From 2017, he introduced an informal 'industry mentoring' activity whereby industry professionals act as mentors on a volunteer basis in the class to assist students with their group work. This continually proves to be hugely popular and he has continued to implement it. Sojen has involved in volunteering and coordinating with charity organisations for an extensive period of time over 25 years, mainly at Red Cross in Australia and Nepal. His interest is now to bring this experience to IT skills development for disadvantaged communities through community entrepreneurship. He is working with a few projects in Nepal and Australia in this topic.