A warm welcome awaited guests on a chilly night in the halls of academia - Macquarie Graduate School of Management to be precise. This month's event was hosted by Macquarie University, MGSM and Access Macquarie, and showcased the wealth of learning and research opportunities available to both individuals and companies.

Professor Roy Green and Kate Hughes of MGSM explained a scoping study currently being undertaken on Sydney's pacific corridor, looking for "spikes in a flat world". Targetting the ICT and Biotech industries, the study will identify 'clustering' activity and linkages between companies in the area. If you would like to know more, or participate in the study, go to: www.mgsm.edu.au/pc for more information on the study and its aims.

Professor Ed Davis of Macquarie University gave an overview of the most popular course in the Economic and Financial Studies faculty (Master of International Business) as well as the wealth of other courses available including communications and engineering. Attendees received a bag packed with information on the University's post-graduate courses; more information can be found at www.mq.edu.au

For companies interested in partnering in research, commercialising inventions and innovation, Ben Smith of Access Macquarie explained more about the link it provides between the Uni and the broader community, working with industry, business and government to identify and access the appropriate expertise and technology in the development of creative solutions for the commercial arena. To find out more, visit www.access.mq.edu.au

The Forum welcomed two new members on the night:

• Shayne Dumbrell of Financial Fundamentals. Shayne specialises in helping people plan for their retirement with superannuation and investment advice as well as comprehensive financial planning for people of any age
• Aleem Khalid of Kordia Solutions. Kordia offers a range of technology solutions based at larger organisations - broadcast solutions, telecommunications solutions and converged solutions. Kordia has been in the business for sixty years and Aleem is based in the North Ryde/Macquarie Park area to assist corporations with their needs.

We also had a very special guest: the Olympic torch. Andrew Hill of AJH Sports was able to secure the loan of one of the torches used in the Australian 2008 Olympic Torch Relay. These torches are hard to come by as the Chinese government insisted on the return of most of them after they had been used in the relay. A few torches were allowed to remain with their runners - in this case the torch is now the property of paralympian Louise Sauvage, who kindly made it available to be shown to schoolchildren in the City of Ryde. Several guests had their photos taken with the torch, and these are available in our gallery - high resolution versions are available on request. Our thanks to Andrew for bringing the torch along and allowing us to have a closer look - it was much appreciated.

Our Business of the Month is Quest Apartments North Ryde, with the team of Andrew Edsor and Matthew and Melanie Child at the helm. Find out more about Quest's lovely Delhi Road property and its facilities here.

Photos from the night are available here. These photos will be suitable for printing out at postcard size on your office printer. Photos by Sabrina Ferguson unless otherwise stated. If you would like a high res copy of any of these please contact Sabrina.