Fairfax Media has partnered with Startup Week Australia, a not-for-profit organisation that focuses on building the startup community in Australia, to drive a national conversation around innovation and entrepreneurship in business.

Fairfax mastheads, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review and BRW, will support Startup Week Australia’s year-long program of events across the nation with panels and content around the key themes of retaining Australia’s entrepreneurial talent, better STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education and workplace diversity, FinTech, the internet of things and the startup journey.

“Fairfax Media and particularly The Australian Financial Review are once again driving the conversations that matter in this unique partnership with Startup Week Australia. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is focused squarely on Australia’s innovation agenda and how to remain competitive. This program is an important contributor to that agenda,” Financial Review editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury said.

“Our support of Startup Week Australia’s program will allow us to engage with new and emerging audiences and align with new trends that are central to the future of business and our nation.”

Startup Week Australia national organiser Michelle Williams said: “Startup Week Australia is more than a series of events. A Petri dish of innovation, new ideas and success stories, it identifies the current infrastructure available for people to find the education, support, connection and funding they need to build their enterprise. As our national partner, Fairfax Media will help us ensure these resources are made available to as many people as possible, to develop and expand the conversation across Australia.”

Fairfax Media Client Development Director, Banking and Finance Danielle Szetho said: “The collaboration with Startup Week Australia and Reinventure Group is a great example of how Fairfax is evolving to ensure we remain absolutely relevant to the changing needs of our audiences. Our trusted brands like the Financial Review are perfect vehicles to connect conversations between business, government and consumers around these vitally important topics.”

This week The Australian Financial Review and Reinventure Group hosted a FinTech Venture Capital and Corporate Innovation panel at Sydney’s FinTech Hub, Stone & Chalk.The lunch event was one of more than 60 Startup Week Sydney events, attended by almost 100 financial services executives and FinTech entrepreneurs.

The panel discussion covered a broad range of topics relevant to innovation, and conveyed important messages about the need to raise technology skills in Australia’s workforce and to deepen the pool of capital available to start-ups. The panel also compared how the big banks are approaching innovation and working with startups.

The panel was moderated by Financial Review financial services editor James Eyers and featured senior innovation executives from Australia’s big banks including Simon Cant (co-Fofnder of Reinventure Group), Adam Bennett (group executive, business and private banking, CBA) and Jonathan Davey (executive general manager, NAB Labs). The panel also included Federal Liberal MP David Coleman, a former technology entrepreneur and venture capital investor who is advising the Federal Government on innovation policy.