Tom Stolberg

Background

About Tom Stolberg

While I may only be 20, having a strong passion to create lead me to acquire my ABN at 12 years of age. In the time following, I have owned and operated 3 successful small businesses. My experience is diversified and varied ranging from starting out selling premium fishing bait through Boaties Bait, leading onto 3D printing a variety of parts ranging from race cars to underground mining through Make it Now. I grew not only my skills but also my resources and networks which has resulted in the development of Rapid Manufacturing. Through this, I aim to rapidly build and manufacture Ideas while sharing my love for small businesses and regional QLD. My involvement in the innovation and small business ecosystem progressed and I undertook a deep dive into the world of startup businesses and innovation in the years that followed acquiring my ABN. This journey through the collaboration with local Innovation Hub Split Spaces and several mentors took me to many local businesses as well as abroad on several sponsored missions visiting and learning from the world's best such as Tesla, Google, Cisco, and many more. This inspired me to start my Bachelor of Engineering Co-Op locally at CQU and has enabled me to offer and share a unique perspective of being so young to give back to the community through many forums ranging from podcasts to guest presenting and mentoring. Throughout this time I was also fortunate enough to obtain some accolades, such as 1st place at the Advance QLD young starters completion at age 17, Winning numerous hackathons and startup weekends as well as being named in 'the most influential 20 under 40 in QLD' by the DailyMail to name a few. Building on and utilising these experiences, I intend to use Rapid Manufacturing which supersedes Make It Now to unlock greater capabilities and work scopes. Enabling the rapid development of innovative ideas into real products cost-effectively, resulting in improved safety, efficiency, and profitability in both local and markets abroad. Looking to the future, I believe Rapid Manufacturing will assist in developing a wealth of local ideas into a cluster of market-leading products in a variety of sectors. As well as furthering my skills and ability to help bring "Manufacturing back to Australia."