31 July 2012

UberGlobal at CareersXpo featuring RiotACT, Yepgot, Stagebitz

| Ruqi
Join the conversation
18

Attendees at this year’s Canberra CareersXpo will have the unique opportunity to hear from some of the region’s youngest and most successful business people.

Among the companies that will be sharing their expertise is UberGlobal, one of Australia’s most successful and fastest growing web technology services companies. UberGlobal provide customised domain and web hosting solutions to their large and varied customer base, and have been listed in the BRW Fast100 for the last three consecutive years. UberGlobal can be found at www.uber.com.au. Facebook.com/uberglobal and @uberglobal.

Michael McGoogan (CEO) and Michal Plazinski will be appearing at the CarrersXpo on behalf of UberGlobal. McGoogan attended high school here in Canberra, and founded UberGlobal at the age of fourteen. He has taken the business from strength to strength over the last decade and now employs over 50 Canberrans at their Braddon headquarters.
McGoogan advises young Canberrans to embrace their entrepreneurial spirit, and is looking forward to sharing some of his insights at the CareersXpo. He will be at the expo on Wednesday and Thursday Mornings.

“With so many young successful business-people making their mark on the technology sector, I believe that the sky’s the limit for young people today,” says McGoogan. “Mark Zuckerberg became the world’s youngest billionaire at 23, and I myself am in the fortunate position of being CEO of a multi-million dollar business right here in Canberra, at just 25 years old. Using my experience in technology and business, I’m thrilled to guide some of the young thinkers of today to become the great leaders of tomorrow.”

UberGlobal will be appearing as a member of The ACT & Region Chamber of Commerce & Industry at their booth at the CareersXpo. The Chamber is a not-for-profit, membership based organisation that provides tangible, cost effective support to businesses in the region.

The Canberra CareersXpo is an annual event which seeks to provide career opportunities to secondary students throughout the ACT and surrounding NSW. The CareersXpo is open from 9.30 am to 7.30 pm on Wednesday and 9.30 am to 2.30 pm on Thursday.

UberGlobal in conjunction with The ACT & Region Chamber of Commerce & Industry have brought together some other entrepreneurs who are Canberra based. They are:

Tim Hyde – CEO RiotAct – Wednesday morning
RiotACT is an online open journalism company founded in Canberra in November 2000. Its aim is to create a platform whereby Canberrans can publish and engage with each other in an online forum on issues, matters and events of interest to the local community. With the increasing influence of technology in our lives and the emergence of blogging and social media over the last 12 years RiotACT has grown to attract a loyal audience in excess of 160,000 unique visitors every month.
www.the-riotact.com
@The_riotact

Catherine Prosser – CEO Stagebitz.com – Wednesday afternoon
Catherine Prosser is a former stage and production manager for theatre who began developing software solutions for the professional theatre industry in 2006. She began working on StageBitz™ in 2010. StageBitz is the first online tool that offers project and inventory management for all the props, scenery, costumes and other items used every day around the world in theatre, film, television, events and other industries.
www.stagebitz.com
@stagebitz

James Long – Yepgot – Thursday afternoon
James Long has studied software development at the ANU and worked at IBM. He is currently running a startup company called Yepgot. Yepgot lets you share (rent) out your things for a fee per day and borrow from others using Facebook. It works like eBay, but instead of buying and selling, you share (rent) what you need, whether that be textbooks, lawnmowers, trailers or party gear.
www.yepgot.com
@yepgot
www.facebook.com/yepgot

[Photo and text courtesy Nick Prosser]

Join the conversation

18
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

johnboy said :

I don’t come in bowls!

A bit too much information one would think…

🙂

Now *that’s* worth a gold medal. 🙂

Masquara said :

Began working on Stagebitz in 2010? Hardly. I do believe Catherine Prosser got significant research funding as far back as 2005 for that software, from the federal government!

I asked Catherine to clarify this for you, as below:

“I did, in fact, get that funding but that was for the previous incarnation, Production Genie. That was focused very much on how to integrate scripts used in theatre into production management technology. After a lot of hard work and research, we decided that it was too high risk for both investors and customers and so, like all good entrepreneurs, we looked again at the problem and industry and whether there was a way we could tackle it from a different angle to increase its appeal to customers and investors alike. This was in mid 2010.

We moved away from scripts and instead focussed on the issue of inventory management and waste of resources inherent not just in theatre, but in film, TV, events and other industries, and thus StageBitz was born. We’ve had an amazing response to this new approach and while we fully intend to revisit Production Genie in the future, particularly after all the hard work and funding that went into it. However our focus for the moment is making StageBitz into the project and inventory management tool of choice for these industries the world over.

It has been great to live in a city like Canberra which provides various funding support to companies who put the hard yards into getting a good idea going. Thanks to Uber for the opportunity to share our story with some aspiring entrepreneurs yesterday.”

johnboy said :

I don’t come in bowls!

No humous, thank you.

LSWCHP said :

Ohhh…:choke:….that’s harsh. I could understand heatherlane not knowing who LSWCHP is, but…but…doesn’t everybody in the ACT IT world know who JB is?

I thought all these ubergeeks would have bowls of Jelly Beans, along with the nerd guns and cleverphones and all.

I don’t come in bowls!

heatherlans said :

LSWCHP said :

If you took the specs off the guy in the OP, I reckon he’d look suspiciously like a cheerful JB.

I’m not sure who JB is so can neither confirm or deny the allegation.

Ohhh…:choke:….that’s harsh. I could understand heatherlane not knowing who LSWCHP is, but…but…doesn’t everybody in the ACT IT world know who JB is?

YeahBuddy said :

I don’t have Facebook …. does this mean no Yepgot for me???

They do have a beta website that you can check out (with no need for a facebook account, I think?), yepgot.com, but yeah they are initially starting the sharing on a case by case basis on their facebook page.

I don’t have Facebook …. does this mean no Yepgot for me???

1337Hax0r said :

I applied for a job with Uber Global just the other week. They were advertising for a service desk analyst. The job description mentioned Nerf guns in the office and table tennis in the rec room.

Hey there, we’d definitely like to see your geeky resume! If you like nerf guns, you’re already halfway there. Shoot me an email at marketing@uber.com.au and we can discuss. Hopefully we can find out which recruitment agency you’re going through too and make sure they know that we do welcome geeked-out resumes 😉

LSWCHP said :

If you took the specs off the guy in the OP, I reckon he’d look suspiciously like a cheerful JB.

I’m not sure who JB is so can neither confirm or deny the allegation. Michael does seem pretty busy though so I can’t see how he could fit a whole ‘nother alter ego in there….

Jazz said :

I’d challenge the uber team to a nerf gun war but i think we’d be outgunned.

Maybe RiotACT should organise a flash mob nerf war in Garema Place? 😉

Flash mobs are soo last decade.

LSWCHP said :

If you took the specs off the guy in the OP, I reckon he’d look suspiciously like a cheerful JB.

This talk of nerf guns in the office…other strange similarities and eerie coincidences…

Hmmm….have JB and Michael McGoogan ever been seen in the same room together? I suspect not.

JB and Michael McGoogan (pictured) are definitely not the same people despite apparent similarities.

I’d challenge the uber team to a nerf gun war but i think we’d be outgunned.

1337Hax0r in that case it would probably be worth trying to apply around the recruitment agency, they obviously don’t understand what cool is.

If you took the specs off the guy in the OP, I reckon he’d look suspiciously like a cheerful JB.

This talk of nerf guns in the office…other strange similarities and eerie coincidences…

Hmmm….have JB and Michael McGoogan ever been seen in the same room together? I suspect not.

1337Hax0r said :

I applied for a job with Uber Global just the other week. They were advertising for a service desk analyst. The job description mentioned Nerf guns in the office and table tennis in the rec room. I did some research and sent off my app to the recruiting company. I got an email back hinting that I needed to update it to remove my experience with Nerf and my comments about how geeky I was. 🙁 So I revised it and sent in a boring application letter. I hate dealing with recruiting companies. I mean did they look at Uber Global’s web site? There’s a guy with a bow tie, a kitten and they’re promoting themselves as supporting geeks.

Did you consider just sending them an application?

I interview and employ software engineers. I’d much rather hear from an applicant directly than through a headhunter. Headhunters, apart from being frequently sleazy, cost me around 15% of the starting salary, and that’s $15,000 overhead on employing an experienced engineer.

The best approach is to call the potential employer, get the contact details of the HR folks, and submit your application.

In fact, Ms Prosser got a cool $80,000. Sorry, it was 2007, not 2005, but certainly NOT 2010.

Began working on Stagebitz in 2010? Hardly. I do believe Catherine Prosser got significant research funding as far back as 2005 for that software, from the federal government!

I applied for a job with Uber Global just the other week. They were advertising for a service desk analyst. The job description mentioned Nerf guns in the office and table tennis in the rec room. I did some research and sent off my app to the recruiting company. I got an email back hinting that I needed to update it to remove my experience with Nerf and my comments about how geeky I was. 🙁 So I revised it and sent in a boring application letter. I hate dealing with recruiting companies. I mean did they look at Uber Global’s web site? There’s a guy with a bow tie, a kitten and they’re promoting themselves as supporting geeks.

Catherine Prosser is well worth a look for those into drama and stage production, quite a clever lady.

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.