Lisa Ring and Family Scholarships
The scholarships are the result of a generous donation from Lisa Ring and Family, who are passionate about enabling support for ambitious new founders with the commitment and drive necessary for their businesses to grow.
The Lisa Ring and Family Scholarships, which are the first of its kind for StartSpace, starting in 2022, are designed to offer seed funding, coaching and support to new business founders in the very early stages of their business journey.
Announcing the Lisa Ring and Family Scholars for 2025
The StartSpace team are very excited to announce the Lisa Ring and Family Scholars for 2025 are:
Josh Farrington, founder and CEO of Healio
Healio is a patient-centric mobile application designed to educate, guide and support hospital patients navigating long or complex healthcare journeys. This includes cancer treatment, stroke rehab, orthopaedic rehab, mental health management and much more.
Ruwini Cooray, founder and CEO of Neurogen
Neurogen is developing an advanced cell-based brain implant solution for treating neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Pictured above: Josh Farrington, Lisa Ring and Ruwini Cooray at the Lisa Ring and Family Scholarships Celebration Breakfast on Thursday 31 October.
The Scholarships program
There have been three years of Lisa Ring and Family Scholarships awarded for 2022, 2023 and 2024 and are set to continue for 2025. The Scholarships include a 12-month tailored mentoring and coaching program, 12-months of StartSpace Loft membership and $10,000 of equity free seed funding.
Applications and eligibility criteria
Applications for are applicable to all Victorian based early-stage founders who are working on their new venture and able to commit to a scholarships program from January – December.
Applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people from culturally diverse backgrounds, LGBTIQ+ people, and people of all ages 18 and above and all abilities were welcomed.
About the Scholarships
Lisa Ring and Family generously donated to enable the provision of scholarships to help develop and give confidence to new and early stage founders.
The scholarships aim to help your business advance to the next stage in your journey and give you confidence for future success.
StartSpace does not take any stake in the business in exchange for the seed funding; equity remains with the founder.
Scholarship Alumni
The 2024 Lisa Ring and Family Scholarhip Recipients
The StartSpace team are very excited to announce the 2024 Lisa Ring and Family Scholars are:
Dr Anushi Rajapaksa co-founder of MISTI – who are developing a consumer-grade next generation nebuliser that will enable better home management of viral infections like influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus.
Edward Barraclough co-founder of Drone-Hand – an AI-driven, automated flight-app designed to work with drones that allows easier monitoring of livestock across all terrains.
Pictured above: Dr Anushi Rajapaksa and Lisa Ring at StartSpace, Wednesday 13 December 2023
Pictured above: Lisa Ring and Edward Barraclough at StartSpace, Wednesday 13 December 2023
The 2023 Lisa Ring and Family Scholars
Daniel Delaway, Founder of The Archive – a platform for the preservation and sharing of human stories captured in cinematic video.
Aiden Rayner, Founder of Don’t Move Until You See It – an online chess training platform which allows players to actively practice chess visualisation.
The Lisa Ring and Family Scholars 2022
The first ever Lisa Ring and Family Scholarship recipients in 2022 were Anna Taylor for her business idea, Podcard which creates and sends personalised podcasts, and David Hartley for his business idea, SoundSmith which connects musicians with viral creators.
