Tips on prototyping and recruitment at B31

WEEK four the B31 Ballarat Business Festival is full of engaging and useful business topics, tips and tales that shouldn’t be missed.

Robert Layton, Eurekative Co-founder and Vice President of Ballarat Hackerspace, will take budding entrepreneurs on a trip to prototype their inventions, test out equipment, and build things at Runway Ballarat’s Fab Lab on Tuesday, 27 August.

Mr Layton said participants at his Prototyping with the Runway Fab Lab workshop will gain an understanding of iterative development and how it is utilized to make a minimum viable product.

“If you have an idea for a product and you don’t know if it will work and you want to minimize your risk you create an MVP,” he said.

“For instance, if you have a concept for a robot, rather than spend thousands and thousands of dollars on motors and components, using iterative design you can build a small scale robot which shows what it is capable of doing and what your idea is, and it might only cost a couple of hundred dollars.”

Workshop attendees will come away with knowledge about prototyping using laser cutters, 3D printers, milling machines, sewing machines and several other tools all housed at Fab Lab.

Also on offer during week four of B31 is Ange Connor, Director at Inspire HQ, session why she thinks traditional recruitment practices are broken, which is set for Thursday, 22 August.

Ms Connor in her How to Recruit in a Candidate Short Market in 2019 presentation will explain why businesses should tell their unique story effectively and how it can attract the right candidate.

“It is important to profile the person you want to attract to understand their drivers and motivators so you effectively target them in your recruitment strategy,” she said.

“A key focus of the workshop is this is not a one size fits all strategy, the profile should attract a specific person for a specific type of business.”

For information on all events go to commerceballarat.com.au.