Venture FellowsPowered by Illume Foundation

Want to play a role in shaping the future of AI & deep tech?

Bring your commercial thinking to the frontier.

Venture Fellows is an 8-week program for former founders, professionals and operators and high-caliber students/graduates interested in hands-on exposure to emerging AI and deep-tech ventures.

You'll learn how breakthrough ideas move from research to real-world applications, and bring a commercial perspective into the venture-building process.

Apply for a Venture Fellow place→

Applications close 23 August 2026.

What you'll gain

Build capability, perspective and community.

Gain experiential learning

Build hands-on understanding of AI, deep tech and venture building through the Future Frontier program. Learn from AI and deep-tech experts from Monash AI Institute.

Develop your commercial thinking

Explore customers, markets, opportunities and pathways to commercialisation around emerging technologies.

Connect across the ecosystem

Meet founders, researchers, investors and innovators across Victoria's growing frontier technology ecosystem.

Explore your place in venture building

Whether that's building, commercialising, investing in or working alongside the next generation of technology ventures.

Join the Illume community

Become part of Illume Ventures' growing community of people shaping what's next.

Your 8-week experience

Four phases, one frontier.

Weeks 1–2

Enter the frontier

Build your understanding of AI, deep tech and the challenges of commercialising emerging technology. Meet the cohort and begin exploring the ventures and technologies within Future Frontier.

Weeks 3–5

Explore the opportunity

Develop your commercial lens. Explore customers, markets, applications, business models and pathways to commercialisation alongside the Future Frontier cohort.

Weeks 6–7

Challenge and refine

Test assumptions, ask difficult questions and develop your thinking around what could make a frontier technology commercially viable.

Week 8

Reflect and connect

Bring together what you've learned, share your perspective and connect with the wider ecosystem. Leave with a stronger understanding of where you could contribute to the future of AI and deep-tech ventures.

What you'll leave with

A deeper understanding of deep tech

You'll be better equipped to understand emerging technologies and identify where they may create meaningful commercial opportunities.

Practical venture-building capability

You'll develop frameworks and experience for assessing problems, customers, markets, business models and venture opportunities.

Experience with real frontier ventures

You'll have engaged with genuine emerging technologies and the people working to bring them into the world.

A stronger commercialisation perspective

You'll understand more about the journey from research and technology to customers, markets and investment.

A new network

You'll build relationships with people across Australia's emerging AI and deep-tech ecosystem.

A clearer sense of what's next

Venture building, commercialisation, investing, innovation, product or strategy — Venture Fellows is an opportunity to explore where you fit in the frontier technology ecosystem.

Who is this for?

People who bring a commercial lens to technical innovation.

A former founder or entrepreneur exploring what's next
A strategy, product, consulting, finance, marketing or business development professional
An industry professional curious about commercialising emerging technology
An MBA or business student looking for hands-on venture experience
A researcher interested in the commercial side of technology translation

You don't need to be a deep-tech expert. You need to be commercially curious, proactive and willing to get close to the problem.

What we're looking for

You don't need a particular degree or job title. We're interested in people who demonstrate:

Commercial curiosity

You naturally think about customers, markets, value and opportunity.

Intellectual curiosity

You're excited by technologies and ideas you may not fully understand yet.

Initiative

You don't wait to be told what to think.

Strong communication

You can ask good questions, challenge assumptions and contribute constructively.

A genuine interest in frontier technology

You're interested in what AI and deep tech could make possible — and what it takes to turn that possibility into reality.

How Venture Fellows fits into Future Frontier

A deliberately mixed ecosystem of technical and commercial talent.

Future Frontier participants

Researchers and founders bring the technology, research and venture opportunity.

Venture Fellows

Commercially minded Fellows bring commercial perspective, industry insight and venture-building capability.

Together

The cohort creates a space where technology meets commercial thinking.

Future Frontier is designed to help researchers and founders move promising AI and deep-tech innovations toward commercially viable ventures. Venture Fellows gives commercially minded people the opportunity to experience and contribute to that process from the other side.

Program details

Applications open: 5 August 2026
Applications close: 23 August 2026
Program: 11 September – 13 November 2026
Duration: 8 weeks
Format: Primarily remote, with selected in-person ecosystem and networking opportunities
A selective opportunity: Only 10 Venture Fellow places are available for this cohort

PARTICIPATION CONTRIBUTION

Places in the program are grant-funded by Innovation Victoria. Participants contribute $500 (excluding GST). A limited number of fully funded scholarships are available for eligible current full-time Victorian students and researchers.

Frequently asked questions