Blackbird reveals the full lineup for Sunrise Australia

Venture capital firm Blackbird’s annual Coachella for startups, Sunrise Australia, will feature more than 50 speakers across three stages, with the full lineup for the two-day event in May revealed today.

New speakers include Bluey creator Joe Brumm, ethicist and philosopher Peter Singer, MONA curator Kirsha Kaechele, Gilmour Space  cofounder Adam Gilmour, Wedgetail VC CEO Lisa Miller, designer Trent Janson, artists Tanya Singer and Errol Evans, and Car Next Door founder Will Davies.

They join Sydney Opera House Trust chair and startup investor Lucy Turnbull, Sunroom CEO Lucy Mort, Remedy Robotics CEO David Bell, and Stripe Press commissioning editor Tamara Winter.

The festival will feature three stages with distinct thematics – Visions, which features keynotes from visionary leaders as they share their big and bold ideas; Collisions – theatre-in-the-round style sessions to fuel debate as experts discuss, dissect and pull apart challenging ideas; and Foundations – practical workshops to help people on their personal journey to be their best.

Discussions on the Collisions stage include:

• Cutting Through the AI Noise: A Guide for Startup Success – what’s hype, whats noise and what should founders pay attention to
• Data vs. Daydream: How to find the balance: Testing the tension between the desire to be creative and the need to prove efficacy.
• The Constructive Critic: Media’s influence on building the future: what role does the media play is shaping Australia’s future?
• Make Them Love You: From Fred Again to Elon to Taylor – mastering the art of building devoted communities
• ‘Alternative Inputs’ – Will the Large Language Models that power generative AI lead to cultural homogeneity?

The Foundations stage workshops include:

• Discovering your personal values
• How to treat life as an experiment
• Develop a Career Strategy
• How to find purpose through your career
• Sales Principles for Accelerating your Career
• Individual Contributor to Exceptional Leader

Sunrise creative director Joel Connolly said it’s there most ambitious Sunrise yet, with more new programming still to announce.

“Sunrise is a festival of creativity, technology, and ambition. It’s our love letter to startups and the people who build them,” he said.

“It’s a real celebration of Australians who dream up and build the future. It’s an opportunity for anyone who is a founder, someone working at a startup, or just curious to immerse themselves in the world of creativity and innovation.

“We’ve built this year’s program to inspire and provoke and we can’t wait for our community to experience it. Sunrise has been running for almost ten years now, and it has continued to grow alongside our ecosystem.”