Today on Better Student Leaders, Josh sits down with Mana Venothkumar, international student, biomedical engineer, former President of the Sydney University Society of Medical Innovation, Startmate Summer Fellow, and now Investment Associate at NextGen Ventures, Australia’s first student-run VC fund backing student founders.

By listening, you will gain:

• The confidence to back yourself even when you’re new, unsure, or starting in a different country or community.
• A mindset for taking bold action, using Mana’s idea of “20 seconds of insane courage” to create opportunities instead of waiting for them.
• A blueprint for building your own community, showing how leadership roles, mentoring, and collaboration open doors you didn’t even know existed.

From founding HydraKit in India (a patented rapid dehydration detection device), to leading teams at Nucleate, to serving as a Postgraduate Student-Faculty Liaison and Senior Buddy for Women in Engineering at the University of Sydney, Mana has built a leadership path defined by courage and experimentation.

Mana shares how she navigated self-doubt on arrival in Australia, rebuilt confidence through community, and why students are “hub spots of innovation” capable of building the next generation of companies.

She opens up about the power of taking bold action, reminding us that “you need that 20 seconds of insane courage” to start anything meaningful, whether it’s joining a club, launching a startup, or pitching to investors.

Throughout the conversation, she emphasises the importance of backing yourself first: “If you’re the one doubting yourself, then you can’t expect someone else to believe in you.”

This episode is a must-listen for international students, future founders, early-career engineers, and anyone who wants to build a life, career, or project that is “cracked, different, and uniquely yours.”

Learn more about NextGen Ventures and Mana here.