Debby Lo-Dean

Debby Lo-Dean is a person who wears many hats. She works in four main areas- the Innovation space, Community Service, Small Businesses and the Creative Arts. She is known as a connector bringing together people and departments that have a shared interest and possible alliances. She is an ideas person who is known to get things done. She has a passion for innovation and the fact that Innovation is a result of finding a solution for a problem.

She considers herself very lucky that she was nominated to attend Singularity University in the USA, of which she was one of the few female attendees. Having the opportunity to study the latest in technology that is addressing global problems from world-leading organisations like NASA, Google, Stanford was an amazing experience.

Becoming one of the Directors of the Gold Coast Innovation Hub has given her the opportunity to help more startups and the innovation space and also connect globally. In the last year, she and her husband created and launched a new Gin brand, Paradise Distillers, using Australian botanicals and promoted stories of her hometown through their labeling and social media posts. They support local suppliers and manufacturers as much as possible.

Her community work is a source of inspiration as her community leaders group bands together to help the community with food parcels and with general answers to questions. Seeing Asian hate increase, she felt a responsibility to take action and wrote a short film which was made on a very small budget and it won at the World Film Carnival.