Riannah Burns
I believe the grand challenges of our time - climate, homelessness, mental health - can be solved. But not by single actors toiling in isolation. Innovation happens at the convergence of sectors, people and ideas. In my role at 10x10, I'm working to create an Australia where the people solving our toughest social problems have every chance to succeed. We do this by building the networks that back early stage NFPs to multiply their impact. My specific role is managing the Venture Philanthropy portfolio, which facilitated $5M+ in grants in 2024.
Sunrise Sessions
Imagine your startup solved the ultimate problem: eternal youth and endless life. You've hacked biology and now you get an infinite number of weekends to fill. Great—right? But what would we even do with forever? This playful, existential panel brings together an eclectic mix: a longevity entrepreneur promising eternal youth, a death doula crafting rituals for life's biggest moments, a youth advocate passionate about meaningful careers, and an expert questioning our obsession with youthful beauty. Together, they'll grapple with provocative questions about immortality, meaning, and why startups and society chase eternal youth. Are technologists just scared of dying? Would endless life make us bored—or brilliant? How do other cultures view ageing and death differently from ours? And what meaningful innovations could emerge if we embraced our mortality, rather than tried to escape it? Join us to explore what happens when the friction of finite human existence meets the seductive promise of eternity.
Congratulations, humanity - you did it! We solved scarcity. Food, water, energy, and shelter? Infinite. Everyone has what they need. But instead of utopia, things are… weird. The old rules don’t work. People are restless. Governments are scrambling to justify their existence. The economy? Well, what even is an economy when everything is abundant? This thought experiment throws us 50 years into a post-scarcity world where we wrestle with the real challenges of abundance. How do people find purpose when survival isn’t the game anymore? Does ambition still exist? How do we decide who gets what when there's no pressing need to fight over resources? And do we actually want to live in a world without scarcity, or does struggle make us who we are? This isn’t a history lesson. It’s a test run of the future. And you, the audience, are here to help figure out how to make it work (or why it might all go horribly wrong).