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Argument, Think Autism Sydney 2025
Sharon Zivkovic built a founder program when none met the autism strategy’s principles
In short
At Think Autism Sydney in 2025, Dr Sharon Zivkovic said the national strategy’s action plan promised to evaluate support for entrepreneurs, and that the programs on offer still asked autistic founders to predict.
Read it instead, 5 minutesThe transcript
The story
When the national autism strategy came out, the part that changed Dr Sharon Zivkovic’s year was its first year action plan. She told the entrepreneurship panel at Think Autism Sydney on 31 May 2025 that one of the plan’s actions was a commitment that “they were going to evaluate all of the existing support programs for entrepreneurs”, to see which ones were working. She had been developing a program on autistic social entrepreneurship for the disability sector and for business advisers, and was close to finishing it. The action plan made her move faster.
The document broadly bears out her summary, though its wording is narrower than hers. The National Autism Strategy’s First Action Plan, published by the Department of Social Services in January 2025, includes under its sixth commitment an action to evaluate the effectiveness of existing programs and initiatives that support inclusive and accessible entrepreneurship. The Department of Social Services leads it, in consultation with the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources. A related action commits the department to evaluate training and resources that help autistic people with money management, tax returns and managing businesses.
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Sources the story draws on
- National Autism Strategy, First Action Plan 2025 to 2026 (opens in a new tab), Australian Government Department of Social Services
- An Effectual Approach to International Entrepreneurship: Overlaps, Challenges, and Provocative Possibilities (Saras Sarasvathy, K. Kumar, Jeffrey G. York, Suresh Bhagavatula) (opens in a new tab), Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (copy hosted by effectuation.org)
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