Growing up in a creative family where both parents worked as entrepreneurs running a business from home, Erika Salmon felt empowered to believe that she too would one day launch her own startup.
She’s long had a passion for IT and initially began a university degree. “It was really theoretical and disappointing,” she says. “I knew TAFE was very practical so I enrolled in my current double degree and I love it.” Erika has completed one year of a Bachelor of Network Security/Bachelor of Data Engineering.
Just months into her course at TAFE NSW Meadowbank in Western Sydney, she heard about The Navigator at the Sydney School of Entrepreneurship in Ultimo.
“I’m a creative, ideas person and always have multiple side-projects going on and I thought I’d like to find more about the entrepreneurial ecosystem.”
While IT offers better job security, in her free time, Erika writes fantasy, sci fi, crime and historical fiction. When she joined the second session of the Navigator, she was delighted to find similarly driven student entrepreneurs who all had their own creative focus like her.
“To be surrounded by extremely intelligent, passionate people from various backgrounds was really fascinating,” she says.
Having graduated from the Navigator in August 2018, she is now focusing on completing her double degree over the next three years. She has already signed up for SSE’s second unit, Ideation, and completed the intensive for the Ideation unit in October 2018 which she really enjoyed.
"We got thrown together with our different skill sets and the potential was extraordinary. I really could never experience this anywhere else."
Initially, Erika expects to work in an IT company and hopes to have the opportunity to be innovative and creative in whatever work she does. Her long term plan is to eventually start her own business in the Internet of Things, security or artificial intelligence fields.
“These areas are constantly evolving and growing and there is so much room for entrepreneurship,” she says.
