Global Tech Advocates launches an Australian arm

Global Tech Advocates (GTA), the international grassroots tech community of more than 30,000 tech leaders, experts and investors, has spread its wings to Australia.

Tech Australia Advocates is GTA’s 35th international group and the Oceania region’s first chapter. It now operates in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Americas.

Global Tech Advocates, was created in 2016 by Russ Shaw, a founding partner of London Tech Week, setting out to inspire tech leaders to volunteer their time to support each other, make connections and campaign for change.

Tech Australia Advocates (TAA) is being led by Dickie Currer and Claire Bull.

Bull has worked extensively with tech businesses from Singapore, to Korea, the UK, US and UAE helping them to expand into new international markets and was most recently head of ecosystem at Rainmaking APAC.

“Australia has such a massive opportunity to diversify our economic output when it comes to international trade,” she said.

“Any opportunity we have to connect Aussie founders to a global network that can help export our technology, we are keen to support that as much as possible.”

Currer’s career spans the law, British Army, Funlab, The Startup Network and most recently as a founding member of

Together they plan to recruit regional leads to help bring together Australia’s state-based ecosystems.

“We both care deeply about elevating Australia’s tech & innovation ecosystem on the world stage,” he said.

“With Australia’s tech sector made up of several regional-based ecosystems due to geographical factors, there’s a real need for a national level organisation to help companies build connections outside of their state and beyond to scale and grow – we want TAA to be that convening force.”

Russ Shaw said a key focus for TAA is to be a national voice, along with building connections outside of the country for founders to have pathways to scale and grow internationally.

“TAA will be instrumental in ensuring skilled individuals have access to exciting new opportunities in Australia, a particularly important mission given the government’s prioritisation of the tech sector as a key potential driver of growth,” he said.