Spark Festival

Spark Festival ⚡️Sparking engagement into and across the NSW startup ecosystem
⚡️ 2-6 September 2024 Plan your Spark Festival now: sparkfestival.co/2022-program/

Spark Festival is Australia’s festival of INNOVATION, TECH AND IDEAS and this year will be the BIGGEST and BEST year yet!! We’re super excited that Spark is lighting up Australian cities everywhere this year including:
⚡ Sydney
⚡ Melbourne
⚡Adelaide
⚡ Canberra
⚡ Newcastle

Plus wherever you are, there's an awesome range of events in our online program as well! There are 130+ events in our program

this year between October 12 and 27 and most events are FREE! Whether you’re into Climate Tech, Fintech, Health Tech or any other type of tech, there’s something for you. And if you’re getting started or trying to get investment, there are great options for you too.

24/11/2025

💥 4000+ registrations, 150+ speakers across NSW… the tenth Spark Festival was a blast!

kicked off our anniversary celebrations – see the highlights thanks to

And we’ve just marked the close of 2025 programming with a record crowd at NSW Parliament: launched the Parliamentary Friends of Innovators, Ventures, Entrepreneurs and Tech (INVENT), led by , and

In between, Spark 2025 brought together an incredible array of founders, investors, MPs, journalists, academics, corporate innovators and supporters.

Our heartfelt thanks to our sponsors – , Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, and – and our board – Murray Hurps, Anne-Marie Elias and Maria MacNamara – for their unwavering support in keeping Spark free and accessible to all.

And finally, hats off to the Spark Festival Leads for their AMAZING work and energy in making it all happen:

💥 Alexandra Hall, our energy tech guru
💥 Calida Tang, Policy Manager at
💥 Harry Godber, CEO
💥 Kristy McSweeney BComms MPol, Founder of
💥 Lucinda Batey, community superstar
💥 Nicholas Chilton, Founder of Venture Affairs
💥 Paul Wallbank, NSW Business Reporter at the Daily Telegraph

We’ll be back with events throughout the year in 2026 – sign up for updates at sparkfestival.co

The Parliamentary Friends of Innovators, Ventures, Entrepreneurs and Technology (INVENT) is launched! With the largest e...
18/11/2025

The Parliamentary Friends of Innovators, Ventures, Entrepreneurs and Technology (INVENT) is launched! With the largest ever crowd to attend such an event in NSW Parliament, the President of the Legislative Council appointed co-chairs and to lead this bipartisan group for the life of the parliament. This group will help parliamentarians of all stripes engage with the startup ecosystem and understand the policy needs of our tech sector as it evolves. Huge thanks to Harry Godber, Nick Chilton, Kristy McSweeney and the whole Spark team for making this happen – and to Minister for his support.

It’s Day Five of Spark Festival 2025 – and what a week it’s been! Join the Spark Team for some casual drinks this evenin...
31/10/2025

It’s Day Five of Spark Festival 2025 – and what a week it’s been! Join the Spark Team for some casual drinks this evening at UTS Startups to wrap up the week – we’ll be opening the doors at 4:30PM. We’ll share our thoughts on the best way for founders to keep the party going – our best-practice guidance for founders communicating with corporates, government, investors and media. And we’ll also hear from NetNada’s Co-Founder Lochie Burke about his experience taking the world-leading carbon accounting and climate reporting platform global. Visit sparkfestival.co to register

It was a blockbuster Wednesday evening yesterday at Spark Festival 2025!At UTS Startups, JurisTechne’s inimitable founde...
30/10/2025

It was a blockbuster Wednesday evening yesterday at Spark Festival 2025!

At UTS Startups, JurisTechne’s inimitable founder Mona Chiha hosted a sold-out showcase featuring Ian Oppermann, Murray Hurps, Sarah Kinkel, Anne Moore, Vibhu Arya, Lynn Wood and many more amazing speakers from the UTS tech community – covering funding, ethics, IP, startup governance and the UTS Entrepreneurial PhD.

In Parramatta at Western Sydney Tech Innovators, Shuoyan Zhu was joined by City of Parramatta’s Cr Hayley French for an open, relaxed conversational session about balancing life and leadership – sharing their experience as mothers in startups and government.

And at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, the Spark Founders’ Dinner was a wonderful opportunity for a room full of fast-scaling Sydney founders to connect, swap stories and share advice as they move through the startup growth curve. It was a wonderful evening that certainly lived up to Freehills’ reputation for fine food and wine. Enormous thanks to Partner and Venture Capital Co-Lead Elizabeth Henderson for hosting and sponsoring Spark Festival – and the VC practice’s founder Peter Dunne for addressing the group.

What an amazing opening night for the tenth anniversary Spark Festival! Thank you for sharing your insights as a serial...
27/10/2025

What an amazing opening night for the tenth anniversary Spark Festival! Thank you for sharing your insights as a serial founder, investor and, of course, Prime Minister of Australia – what a pleasure to have you join us. Highlights coming soon thanks to our dear friends at – and huge thanks to for hosting us!

What a great way to kick off Spark Festival 2025 – talking housing affordability at with and friends!
27/10/2025

What a great way to kick off Spark Festival 2025 – talking housing affordability at with and friends!

We are thrilled to announce that the Hon Malcolm Turnbull AC, the 29th Prime Minister of Australia, will be launching th...
12/10/2025

We are thrilled to announce that the Hon Malcolm Turnbull AC, the 29th Prime Minister of Australia, will be launching the Spark Festival tenth anniversary program on 27 October – kicking off a jam-packed week of startup events at Tech Central Sydney and across NSW.

And for the tenth year running, we’re opening Spark Festival to everyone in our ecosystem – without charging a dollar for passes. Thanks to our incredible community of volunteer hosts, festival leads and sponsors, Australia’s largest startup event remains free to all.

Visit sparkfestival.co for the program – events and tickets are being added daily!

Thank you for joining incubator leaders in our ecosystem as we count down to Spark Festival 2025! Minister Leigh shared...
17/09/2025

Thank you for joining incubator leaders in our ecosystem as we count down to Spark Festival 2025! Minister Leigh shared his thoughts why the startup support is vital in driving economic growth, and heard the community’s concerns about the challenges with incubator funding and activity that are being experienced across the country.
Thank you for being part of the conversation and The Melt!

We’re looking forward to bringing Spark Festival once again to Tech Central – thanks for spreading the word! Head to sp...
16/09/2025

We’re looking forward to bringing Spark Festival once again to Tech Central – thanks for spreading the word! Head to sparkfestival.co to learn more and host an event during the festival week.

Australia’s biggest startup event is back – from 27 October to 2 November 2025. As always, Spark Festival is free to att...
15/09/2025

Australia’s biggest startup event is back – from 27 October to 2 November 2025.

As always, Spark Festival is free to attend, and we’ll be taking over Tech Central in partnership with the City of Sydney and Stone & Chalk.

We’re proud to be celebrating our TENTH year, with a renewed mission: to reignite event activity across the NSW startup ecosystem.

Since 2016, Spark has connected founders, investors, unis, policymakers and hubs through hundreds of events, building a network of over 40,000 participants.

But this year’s event comes as startup event activity in NSW has slumped – with lack of funding leaving government-backed spaces underutilised and founders struggling to find support. The challenge today isn’t just connecting events. The now needed is to reignite the sector.

Spark Festival 2025 is both a celebration of a decade of impact, and a rallying point to build a thriving, well-connected startup community for the future.

This year, Spark will be led jointly by a team of seven dynamic Festival Leads – bringing specialised experience to the festival week to ensure we have a wide range of original programming that remains relevant, original and free to attend.

Visit sparkfestival.co to run an event, support us, and sign up for updates to ensure you’re the first to know when tickets are released!

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6 Macquarie Street
Sydney, NSW
2000

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