Lean and Agile Entrepreneurship

The Atomic Sky team, along with Perth entrepreneur Mike O’Hanlon and the Innovation Quarter Team from UWA, were invited to Wandoo Reintegration Facility, to run a workshop to introduce Lean and Agile entrepreneurship thinking to some of the residents.

We facilitated a learning session with a broader group initially to introduce the concepts, then sat down with those who had a specific idea they wanted to look at for starting a business afterwards. 

It’s amazing how many returned for the second part of the session, as they were looking at having a crack at their own business after the introductory talk. 

We used the idea from one of the residents as an example, where they wanted to start a painting and decorating business. Through using the lean canvas we were able to work through a business model, and help define a specific focus for the business, initial location and developed a unique value proposition to get them started.

It was eye opening to see the residents get behind some startup thinking, and help each other out with building the business model.

The WA state government has allocated funding for teaching entrepreneurship, and Andy says it would be really interesting to see if these funds could be channeled into a program for offenders. Whilst having a tour of the facility, we also learnt from the education team that another Perth prison, actually have a program to run a Shark Tank type event as well.

Overall, it was an amazing morning, and something that we were able do to support and give back to various sections of the community which we wouldn’t normally engage with. It goes to show, innovation and entrepreneurship is driving different thinking in all aspects of our community. We all walked away wanting to get involved further.

Side note: There is a successful similar program that is run within the UK and US prison system as well. Lets see where this leads…