Addressing Global Challenges Locally from FWD Fest

Note: the following transcript was generated by AI and therefore may contain some errors and omissions.

G’day and welcome to Forward Thinking, a special edition of the Coast and Commerce podcast, which was recorded live at Forward Fest 2025. I’m Ben Amos from Innovate Media and I’m Craig Josey, co-founder and chair of Forward Fest. In this first episode, what you’re going to hear is from two businesses, interviews that we recorded live at Forward Fest. And these two businesses are well wrapped up in the Forward Fest ecosystem, and they’re actually part of the Leap Forward accelerator as well.

So, Craig, do you want to share a bit more? Yeah, we’re really excited to be able to showcase these two local companies that are truly making a global impact, and we’re proud to have them. Part of the Leap Forward program, which is proudly supported by the Queensland Government. So let’s dive deep into this opportunity that they’re presenting locally and globally.

The first business we’re going to hear from is Shannon Lemanski from Aqua Ubique. Welcome to the Forward Thinking Podcast. A special edition of the Coast and Commerce Podcast, recorded live here at FWD Fest 2025. And the first guest that we’ve got for this special podcast is one that has actually been on the Coast and Commerce podcast before. We’ve got Shannon Lemanski from Aqua Ubique. Shannon, welcome back to the podcast, or welcome to the Forward Thinking podcast. Cheers, Ben. And I suppose for everyone listening, welcome. Even if you’re not here today, welcome to Forward Fest.

Yeah, absolutely. So the reason why I wanted to get you on this Forward Thinking special podcast episode today is because Forward Fest has played a big part in your business journey so far, but maybe before we go into that, can you maybe share a little bit about what Aqua Ubique is? Just the top-level kind of idea of what this business that you started a few years ago now is. And it actually started here at Forward Fest, but we’ll get to that. It is indeed. And I suppose if you want to condense what we do into a sentence, we make water from air. Yeah. And everyone goes like that. Yeah. “What? What? How?” is the next one that we normally get. And effectively we get air. We chill it, we condense the water that’s in it. So we capture the humidity, we filter it, we add minerals, and it comes out as drinking water. That’s how it works. Lovely.

Yeah, the “why”. And if you want for anyone listening along at home, if you want the detailed story, go jump on. Ben does an awesome podcast. Go jump on the other episode where I go into a lot of detail about what I saw in the Army and where it was, and how it led to where we are today. Um, but the why that’s driving the business was covered really nicely. Dave Clare, for anyone that wasn’t here this morning, you missed an awesome breakfast with Dave Clare. And he covered the “why”. And one of the quotes that came out of that is particularly as a business owner, “If your staff are only interested in a paycheck, it’s because you’re only interested in a profit.” Yeah. So, therefore, don’t be surprised if your staff churn out, so your business needs to have a better reason than just making a profit. Over 2 million Australians don’t have access to safe drinking water, and we’re on a mission to fix that. So our mission is to generate 300 million liters of water per day by 2032. So that way every Aussie can turn on the tap. So that’s what we’re working on doing at the moment.

Yeah. Beautiful. And we’ve got Aqua Ubique water dispensers all around the venue here today as well. And you’ve got Aqua Ubique water dispensers in businesses all around Queensland now as well. But take me back to 2023 when you attended Forward Fest. And at that stage the business wasn’t a business, right? So take me back to that. It just didn’t exist. Um, I had a business—I had a really average business card. Um, I had an idea. I was full of ideals. I thought I knew how. I had a startup that was going to make millions of dollars overnight because Instagram says everything’s an overnight success. Um, so I walked in here with nothing more than a business card. And the goal for that one was to meet angel investors, because angel investors just give out money willy-nilly to good ideas, and then they crack on. I knew nothing about investment, knew nothing about product-market fit. LTV to unit economics. I didn’t know any of these terms at that point, but I walked in with an idea.

Um, so one of the co-founders of Silicon Coast, he’s got a saying, and he gets thrown around the festival right now: collaborative collisions. And that’s exactly what happened at FWD Fest ’23. I met Gavin Keeley, who’s one of the other co-founders, and I asked him for a coffee. “Why do you want a coffee?” I explained what I was trying to do. And he’s like, “Okay, I’ll give you 20 minutes.” That then allowed us to unpack what the actual “why” behind the business was and what’s actually driving me, which is the story in PNG. Um, and that set the conditions there that between Forward Fest 2023, I had an idea which didn’t even exist on LinkedIn yet. Um, I was literally making the business on LinkedIn while I’m listening to Gavin and Wayne Gerard talk about how to raise capital. So before I go up and shake their hand, the business needs to exist on LinkedIn so that when they look me up, they don’t go, “Ah, defense consultant, you’re not a founder.” Um, so I made the business on LinkedIn during FWD Fest ’23.

Fast forward 12 months from there. Forward Fest 2024, we had a product, so we launched the product at FWD Fest 2024. Um, we were involved in the innovation pitch fest and the procurement pitch fest there. Um, there’s some debate as to whether I won that pitch or I won one of those pitches. But hey, that’s one to discuss over beers. Um, and then fast forward less than 12 months from there, thanks to the—it’s not even the generosity—but because of the fact that small and large businesses on the Sunshine Coast are now making better decisions, we now have the customer base to allow us to deploy water coolers into remote, regional locations where they’re needed, and we roll that out from next week. So we’ve gone from a business card to a product to an impact project, and we’ve executed all of that in under three years. Amazing.

And with Forward Fest being those kind of milestones at those pivotal moments in the growth of the business so far, the only reason we’ve gotten to where we’ve gotten to is because of the community that’s built around Forward Fest, the innovation ecosystem that is the Coast, and the pay-it-forward model. So pay-it-forward is what—it wasn’t how it got into Forward Fest initially, but the people’s generosity with their time and their knowledge and their experiences and willing to give me a bit of time so that way I can learn from their mistakes has just propelled the business. It’s so fast in the last three years to where we are today.

Yeah, it’s so good. So tell me, like for you now, after having, I guess, somewhat immersed yourself in the entrepreneurial and innovation kind of ecosystem on the Sunshine Coast, what is it about here that kind of makes it a breeding ground for great ideas into businesses like Aqua Ubique? Um, it’s very much the energy. It’s very much that that pay-it-forward model. Um, and just people willing to have a crack like the, the. So I walked in for the first time in 2023. I actually didn’t think I was going to make it back in time. So I was away doing something that I’m sure was very important at the time, was coming and worrying about whether I was going to buy a ticket. I think it was about $300 or $400. That was a big investment for me at the time. I’m like, “Oh, that’s okay, I’ve got an idea. I’m young, I’m naive. I know exactly what I’m going to do. This thing will print a million dollars. This is where all the investors are. I need to come here.” So I came here hunting capital. Um, didn’t walk away with capital. Walked away with stuff that’s so much more valuable than capital, which is the networks, the ideas, the ability to pressure test stuff, and fail fast and fail forward. Refine the idea and go from there. Awesome.

So tell me, FWD Fest 2024 marks another milestone for Aqua Ubique. You briefly touched on it before, but can you share a little bit more about kind of where the business is at today and what’s coming now? So, so for the first time in 2025 this year, um, so later this afternoon I’m launching Drop for Drop. So that’s our impact project. So the way the Drop for Drop works, then, similar to how Zimbra does “pay for plate” or TOMS does “buy one, give one” with shoes, we’ve effectively copied that model because it works. And for every five water coolers we lease, or for every five water coolers we’re replacing for a small business, that allows us to then deploy and sustain one in a remote, regional community that needs it.

The city council there, less than three hours from where we’re sitting at over 2.5 hours from where we’re sitting at the moment on the Coast, their tap water is undrinkable. They were under a boil water alert for more than nine months last year. I was out there last week. The kids in the school drink the tap water because it’s currently safe to drink, and I use that term really loosely. Right. Um, the daycare centre is using more than 25, 15-liter barrels a fortnight. All the aged care centre, all their residents are on bottled water because they don’t trust the tap water, and the tap water, it might just make the Australian drinking water guidelines, but it depends what day you tested it. So the first two Drop for Drop machines will be headed out to Cherbourg in the next couple of weeks. One will be going into the school, one will be going into the aged care centre, and that way it’s where the most vulnerable are. And in society or in a community, you should just be able to turn on the tap and drink, and you can’t in that community. So, therefore, because of the customers that we’ve had, that have made those smart choices, made the switch, and changed their water coolers over, we can now actually make an impact in that community that needs it.

Yeah. I mean, that’s incredible that, you know, over the course of a couple of years, you’ve gone from an idea and, you know, setting up a LinkedIn profile to now having a real impact in the local community here in Queensland through the work that you’re doing. And I guess it’s just, you know, onwards and upwards from here. So, you know, I know that you’ve recently announced as well a number of the Aqua water coolers being placed in Brisbane Convention and Exhibition centre, so there’s quite a few businesses now that are adopting this water-from-air idea, right? And changing out their their standard office water coolers.

So for those businesses that are maybe interested in exploring that for themselves, can you maybe share a little bit about who it’s right for? And, and you know, a little bit about how those water coolers can get into an office. So, so I suppose the best way to think about it, um, if you have an office water cooler at the moment, you’re changing the bottle over, so you’re paying to move plastic around. You’re dealing with the heavy bottle, the spills, cleaning up all that mess. If you’re a small business, I know this will resonate with you. I know that you’ve had the water cooler there, and it’s just always been there. It’s called “water cooler talk” for a reason. Our water coolers have the capacity to generate, on average, 30 bottles a month. We only charge you for ten. So you’ve got 20 bottles of free value by changing over. Our water is cleaner and greener. So there’s no plastic, there’s no transport emissions. We’ve got better minerals, we’ve got no microplastics, we’ve got no forever chemicals. And you know that by changing your water cooler over, not only is it saving you up to two and a half grand a year, you’re also helping get water where it needs to go. So it’s very much a small business team of five or more with an office water cooler. If you’re doing ten bottles or more a month, I can save you money. Amazing.

So the best place is aquaUbique.com. And if you don’t know how to spell Ubique, https://www.google.com/search?q=betterthanbottle.com works as well, I love it. That’ll do it. Straight across. Beautiful. So just as we wrap up here at FWD Fest 2025, I want you to maybe share any kind of insight or motivation to either it’s someone here at Forward Fest 2025 who has an idea of a business that, you know, needs that motivation, that boost, or, you know, they’re watching this and they’re thinking, “I’m going to attend Forward Fest 2026 and see what I can do with this idea.” What would you say to that person out there that maybe was like you in 2023?

Um, ask for coffees. Walk up to people, pitch. I don’t care so much what your product is. I don’t care so much what your idea is. I care about the problem that you’re solving. So you need to know the problem that you’re solving and have the vision of how you’re going to solve that. If you can define those two things, everything that everyone is here in the community can help you do that. So reach out. Hit me up on LinkedIn. Hit up CJ on LinkedIn. We can both find time. Uh, hit up Owen Boling on LinkedIn. And from there, if it’s either coffee with us or we can direct you to the right people that you need to talk to on the Coast. Beautiful. Shannon, I love what you do. I love the story of Forward Fest and how it’s helped you grow this business as well. And I love the impact you’re having on the world in getting safe, clean drinking water into the hands of so many people. And of course, just helping people do better with their office water coolers as well. Right. That’s the plan. So very much better for you, better for the planet, building better communities. It’s a win-win-win. We love it.

All right. So thanks for joining us for this episode of the Forward Thinking Podcast here at FWD Fest 2025. If you want to catch the next episode, make sure to subscribe here to the Coast and Commerce podcast to catch another episode of this special season on YouTube or the podcast player of your choice. And don’t forget to check out FWD Fest 2026. It’ll be with us before we know it. Shannon, thanks for joining me. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Take care. See ya.

What two incredible stories, and I hope that has inspired you to look locally and what impact you can make into your community. So if you are interested in hearing more of the incredible stories that we captured live at FWD Fest 2025, then make sure you hit subscribe either here on YouTube or whatever podcast player you’re listening on. And don’t miss the next episode, because we’ve got eight incredible episodes in total of the Forward Thinking podcast coming to you, with many more inspiring stories to come. So we’ll see you in the next episode.

G’day, and welcome back to the Forward Thinking Podcast, a special edition of the Coast and Commerce Podcast, recorded live here at FWD Fest 2025. I’m Ben Amos from Innovate Media, and I’m joined today in this episode by Ilana Moray from Moyai. Moyai. Get that right. Moyai. Moyai. There we go. So tell us a little bit about Moyai. Like, what is it? Where did the idea come from? So at Moyai, what we’re trying to do is create a world built for all bodies, minds and needs. The idea was actually born out of a startup weekend held by Silicon Coast in 2022. I am a health professional, so I’m a physiotherapist with over 17 years experience in hospital and community settings, and my brother lives with a disability. So I’ve seen the barriers that people face on a daily basis. And so the idea came out off the back of Covid, actually. So just we had lost a lot of connection within our community and just trying to help improve health and well-being through community connection and start creating meaningful change within the community so that we can help people with disabilities thrive and share really who they are with the entire world.

So Moyai, is it a platform? Is it an app? Tell us more about the solution. Yeah. So Moyai is the bridge between people living with disabilities, businesses and government to bring access inclusion into our everyday lives. So for people living with disabilities, we match their accessibility and sensory needs to venues that cater to them so they can move confidently through our community. And for businesses, we take real lived experience and turn that into practical solutions so they can actually welcome up to 20% more customers through their doors. And for government, we’re like, um, REM plan, which is a data site, and TripAdvisor come together to create a social impact tool by using venue level data and real lived experience so that they can track those changes, the quantitative changes within our community so we can head towards creating real change so the NDIS becomes more sustainable. Yeah, we highlight where access inclusion is already happening and where we could do better. Yeah, amazing.

Like so many good startup ideas, I think it sees a need that needs addressing and then works out the solution that’s going to address that need. And so can you take me back to the start or the formation of the idea? Was that where it started for you, and how different does Moyai today look like from what you thought you were creating when you started, you know? Yeah. So and we have we’ve discovered so much along the way because we’ve been blessed to work with people living with disabilities. So working still as a physiotherapist, my people, my community have helped us to build and grow and evolve what we have turned into as Moyai. We actually started as the Accessibility, Sensory Needs and Inclusivity Index, which is quite the mouthful. And what we were doing to begin with was we had an algorithm to score a venue to figure out if it meant someone’s access and sensory needs. But then when we did more and more discovery, what we understood was that there is no one perfect score. Everyone has different needs, everyone has different wants. A cafe might meet someone’s personal needs, but they might not enjoy it. And so yeah, we just we have evolved into being also a solution-focused business as opposed to just providing the access and sensory needs information. So that’s where we started. Yeah. And now we’re helping businesses along the journey to make really cost effective changes so that they can welcome more people. And then for those that have greater budgets, we connect them also with our Access inclusion consultants so they can make big scale, big scale changes. And then for government. Well, we didn’t have that idea in our head to start with. But if we don’t work at a systemic level, we’re not going to see the change that we need so that we can create the world that works for all bodies, minds and needs. Yeah. Very cool. It’s it’s great to see where an idea forms and where it comes from after really connecting with the market and adjusting and adapting your ideas as you go.

Yeah. I think, um, you know, any good idea starts from a seed of an idea, but then it’s once you start to stress test it in the market, then you really start to learn from that. But also, I think it comes from a lot of those other connections and collaborations that naturally form, right? Forward Fest being one of those places where a lot of that forms. So can you take me back to you started in a in a startup weekend, which is, you know, one of the, I guess, breeding grounds of good ideas here on the Sunshine Coast. And how has that community, that entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem supported Moyai as you’ve developed?

Well, I’ll take you back to the very start, actually, because Jess, my business partner, and I attended the Silicon Coast Startup Weekend, and we had zero intention of pitching because we didn’t understand this world. We wanted to just sort of sit back and help out, learn a bit more. But C.J., being C.J., from Forward Fest, everyone knows C.J., he tapped me on the shoulder at least four times and said to me, “I know you have ideas. You need to get up there and pitch.” And so the support was already there before I even hit the stage for the first time. And I get a bit emotional because he’s been there the whole time. Yeah. Um, which I’m very grateful for. Um, so that is just love coming out of my eyes, by the way, because they have been so supportive. This is not easy. It’s not easy. And we have a very broken system when it comes to healthcare. We have a broken system when it comes to designing venues. We don’t design them with people with living with disability in mind. And so there’s a lot of challenges that we have met along the way. But the support through the innovation ecosystem through Forward Fest has helped us get to that next connection. That next step, that next stage, so that, um, ride the next wave. Like Dave Claire said this morning, we have been doing that. We are the ultimate surfers. Um, and we’re so blessed to be a part of this family. Yeah. Amazing.

So pitching today, what’s the next stage like? What are you hoping from today’s pitch? And you know, who are you hoping is in the audience that might be able to connect you further? And what’s the next stage for Moyai? Everyone’s in the audience. And that’s the thing. This is going to take a village. So we are currently collecting our pilot data in Caloundra, and we are pitching this afternoon with the plan to launch in June. So we’re wanting to connect with leaders in healthcare, access inclusion consultants. We’re seeking a real warm introduction to the Department of Families, Seniors, Disability Services and Child Safety because we believe that we will be able to assist them to achieve the Australian Disability Strategy. But at the end of the day, we want to connect with people who are living with disabilities, people who support disabilities, health care professionals, or someone who can just see that we need to move towards a world that works for each other. So everyone this is it’s a movement. We’re creating a movement. Yeah, amazing.

And so what’s next for Moyai, though? So you’re launching in June? Yeah. And what does that look like? So I can already tell you from our pilot data in Caloundra that only 22% of venues offer accessible toilets and 37% of venues are step-free. So what we’re wanting to do is to help support businesses address areas that can get them a quick return on investment so they can get up to 20% more customers through their door. So we’re wanting to help showcase what we have to offer people living with disabilities, but also how we can help businesses to improve their service delivery and offerings.

Excellent. So for anyone watching or listening, it may be after June when they watch or listen to this episode. But if they’re in that space where either they are running a business that, you know, perhaps they can consider how they can be more accessible to people with disabilities, how can they get involved? And also maybe, you know, other people in the sector, how can they get involved or where can they find out more? Moyai is the easiest way to do that. Follow us on our socials. Like and follow. Share, share, share. That is probably the easiest way. We do have an expression of interest form on our website, so it’s super easy. Name, your email, and who you represent, as in do you live with a disability, a supporter, a person, etc., just so that we can understand which angle you’re coming from.

Excellent. And that’s Moyai. That’s it. What does it mean? What does the Japanese word mean? Well, it actually refers to a community that takes care of each other. So it’s accredited to the Okinawa. So in Okinawa, Japan, the centurions credit their long life to the Moyai. Beautiful, I love it. All right. For you guys watching go and check out Moyai.com.au to learn more and find out what’s going on there. And, just follow the story and see how you can support because that’s what the innovation system here on the Sunshine Coast is all about. Thanks for watching today’s episode. We’ll see you in the next episode of the Forward Thinking podcast, and I’ll talk to you real soon. See ya. Thank you.

What two incredible stories, and I hope that has inspired you to look locally and what impact you can make in your community. So if you are interested in hearing more of the incredible stories that we captured live at FWD Fest 2025, then make sure you hit subscribe either here on YouTube or whatever podcast player you’re listening on. And don’t miss the next episode, because we’ve got eight incredible episodes in total of the Forward Thinking podcast coming to you, with many more inspiring stories to come. So we’ll see you in the next episode.