Digital Nexus
Digital Nexus brings you inside Australia’s AI frontier. Hosts Chris Sinclair and Mark Monfort sit down with founders and leaders shaping the market, uncovering the products, journeys, and ideas driving AI adoption. Smart, unfiltered, and a little cheeky — it’s your backstage pass to the people redefining Australia’s tech future (and the world of course).
Mark Monfort, the tech wizard behind the @AusDefi Association and NotCentralised, isn't just a name—he's a legend. With blockchain fin-tech victories under his belt, he's now on a quest to build the ultimate #LLM, SIKE.ai, enhancing business workflows and securing data like a true digital sorcerer. Nothing can stop him!
Chris Sinclair, the design guru and UX/CX mastermind, knows the secrets of digital innovation and business strategy like the back of his hand. Partnered with Digital Village, a league of specialists leading the charge in product development and innovation, Chris is here to prove that the old ways of working are no match for the future!
Get ready for epic discussions, expert perspectives, and a sneak peek into the future of digital innovation. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and stay tuned for more episodes as we explore the frontiers of technology with a dash of humour and a whole lot of superhero flair...or fails!
Digital Nexus
AI Doom, Hope & the Builders Shaping Australia’s Future - Hosted at SXSW 2025
AI isn’t the enemy, it’s the experiment of our lifetime. At SXSW Sydney 2025, we took Digital Nexus onto the floor and into the streets to ask a simple question: doom or hope? From late-night hackathons to founders shipping agentic workflows, this episode captures how Australians are actually building with AI.
We go behind the scenes with builders and community leads from Build Club, hands-on teams using Relevance AI, Lovable, and Bolt.new, and ecosystem voices like the National AI Centre, plus candid vox pops from attendees who think AI is either saving creativity… or killing it. If you’re a founder, product leader, or designer trying to turn hype into shippable outcomes, start here.
You’ll learn
Why “AI doom vs. hope” is the wrong frame, and what builders are doing instead
Where agentic workflows beat black-box agents (and when they don’t)
How tools like Relevance AI, Lovable & Bolt.new compress idea to MVP
Practical adoption patterns we saw across Aussie startups and teams
What the National AI Centre says about responsible rollout in AU
The real skills founders need next (UX, data, orchestration, governance)
Keywords: AI Australia, SXSW 2025, SXSW Sydney, Build Club, Relevance AI, Lovable AI, Bolt.new, National AI Centre, AI agents, agentic AI, Anthropic, NVIDIA, ChatGPT, Gemini, founders, product design, UX, startup growth, Australian startups, AI podcast
Timestamps / Chapters
01:02 – Intro at SXSW Sydney 2025 (what we’re testing & who we met)
03:18 – Street takes: “AI apocalypse” vs “AI accelerator” (vox-pop highlights)
06:45 – Builder mindset: why agentic workflows beat pure agents
09:12 – Hands-on demos: rapid prototypes with Relevance AI & Lovable
11:00 – What does the public say about AI?
16:30 – Saanvi Y - Founding Member of Build Club
20:04 – Ishita Gupta from Kinso AI
23:11 – Community spotlight: inside Build Club (skills, projects, outcomes)
27:06 – Rita Arrigo from the National AI Centre on responsible AI in Australia
31:40 – Teams & tooling: when to choose ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini
35:22 – From fear to shipping: practical prompts, guardrails, and QA loops
38:05 – Creativity & jobs: what changes, what doesn’t, what gets better
41:10 – Takeaways: our SXSW checklist for founders & product leads
43:02 – Outro & next steps: links, resources, and how to get involved
Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi
SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus
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