The eight week education program began in late April, with a mixture of weekly Zoom and face to face workshops, comprising local business founders, iAccelerate experts, and industry support.

University of Wollongong Bega campus manager Samantha Avitaia said when the Innovation Hub was launched in 2019, all activities were face-to-face and it was a three day per week commitment. However during COVID, the program switched to be 100 per cent online.

"We learnt a lot about what worked well online and what didn't and now we've gone for a mixture of both," said Ms Avitaia.

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Online activities were now completed before the group meets, meaning the program would be just three hours a week in person - much more manageable for the businesses.

"It's really interactive because everyone's done their pre-work and they can talk about their business for that topic for that week, it might be marketing, branding, or customer validation for example," said Ms Avitaia.

The cohort were able to get together in person for the first time on Friday May 20, with Wollongong mentor Frank Marzano who has owned and operated software company iTree for over 26 years.

Later in the program businesses will also be mentored Bega Valley locals Natasha Berta from Connected Marketing and Tiffany Hart from Growgetter.

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The cohort will be pitching their business ideas in late June, and since many of the companies were socially minded, the Innovation Hub will be inviting a lot of government agencies or providers who may be able to support the entrepreneurs with grant funding.

The five entrepreneurs and their businesses include:

This will be the second last cohort funded under the Australian government's Incubator Support Initiative model with support from the council, UOW and Bega Cheese.

Five cohorts have been taken through the program so far, but the Innovation Hub planned to look for a new model going forward when funding ends in December.

"I'm hopeful it will continue to move forward with all the partners, everyone seems to be keen to further it. It might look a little bit different, but we're learning things all the time and changing and iterating so I'm hopeful it will continue going forward," said Ms Avitaia.

The Bega Valley will also be hosting an innovation summit next March where the cohorts and companies from various regional programs (many supported by bushfire grant funding) will be travelling to the area to meet.

"I think the summit will help make people see the value of the program and hopefully then they will be able to continue to fund it in the regions, or we were thinking of joining together some of the cohorts and have maybe a multi-regional program," said Ms Avitaia.