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Author: James Riley

  • Putting the $4b ‘Assistive Tech’ market at risk

    The recent report on Human Rights and Technology by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) made a landmark statement on technology as an enabling human right, and called for changes to the way in which the NDIS considers and funds assistive technology.

    This significant human-rights statement also serves to highlight the economic impact of a vibrant and growing assistive technology market, estimated to be in the order of $4 billion per annum in Australia alone.

    Assistive technology (AT) is broadly described as any tool, product, software or device that helps people do things they would otherwise have difficulty doing or would not be able to do. Examples include sensors, immersive environments, tablets, exoskeletons, wheelchairs, speech synthesisers and robots.

    It is also significant that the AHRC report highlighted the human rights implications of the complexity, delays and inconsistency of NDIS assistive technology processes.

    Marie Johnson
    Marie Johnson: Innovations in assistive technology are an opportunity

    And here’s why these statements matter. And why every technology provider, entrepreneur and government seeking an innovation-led economic recovery, should be concerned.

    The dog whistling going on over the NDIS costs, misses this far more economically significant factor: the squandered potential of a massive assistive technology market which directly impacts Scheme sustainability and domestic innovation.

    The brilliant foresight of the 2011 Productivity Commission Report into Disability Care and Support, emphasised the absolute necessity of innovation and technology.

    So given the massive size of the AT market and the transformative impact of AT on jobs, the lack of analysis regarding AT by the NDIA is concerning.

    Deep analysis and future casting is urgently needed, to provide essential insight on the shifts and possible futures of the AT and innovation industry.

    Without this, of what use is financial forecasting on Scheme sustainability? And without this, how will “market thinness” into the future be understood?

    In a number of Submissions to inquiries, the Australian Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Association (ARATA) pointed to the systemic deficiencies and a culture against a return on investment approach by the NDIS for the funding of AT over time. Specifically, ARATA emphasised the need for…“methods to create a culture of selection of AT based on ROI.”

    So, this is what a lack of an ROI culture looks like and how this risks dampening the AT market.

    In my 2017 evidence as an AIIA National Board Director to the Senate Committee on the Delivery of Outcomes Under the National Disability Strategy 2010-2020, I spoke about the actual example of a physiotherapist consulting with patients on the other side of the country by using a digitally network-connected exoskeleton.

    ROI in this case was not a like-for-like comparison between a wheelchair and exoskeleton. An exoskeleton does not replace a wheelchair: the combined augmented life-long benefits were documented across all dimensions of life.

    This actual example from this exoskeleton NDIS provider demonstrated the human impact, time and cost of trying to prove ROI involved in introducing new servicing innovations for NDIS participants.

    The article ‘Second Best’ by a former NDIS Senior Local Area Coordinator (LAC) also spoke about the NDIA’s resistant culture regarding the investment benefit of AT innovations.

    In the ‘Second Best’ article, the former LAC described the situation of hearing-impaired people who have been fighting with the NDIA over visual alert systems such as ‘Visualert’ and haptic alert systems.

    In Australia, smoke alarm legislation is very strict. For hearing people, the alarm must be heard from wherever they are in the home.

    The ‘Second Best’ article offered that hearing impaired people would need a similar system.

    Occupational Therapists and audiologists around Australia have been recommending visual alert systems because it keeps hearing impaired people safe.

    But according to the ‘Second Best’ article, the NDIS is refusing these. Instead funding only cheaper systems that rely on batteries, pagers and WiFi. The ‘Second Best’ article reported that these systems do not meet the same strict safety requirements that hearing systems must meet.

    And even the most fundamental of human rights and basic human care – for an incontinent person to be kept clean – is a domain of radical innovation.

    Innovation almost impossible to imagine, given the reports from the Royal Commissions of the appalling rationing of incontinence garments.

    The 2020 Report of the “Global Incontinence Products Industry” projects that the global market for incontinence care products will reach US$17 billion by 2025, with product innovation driven by RFID and sensor wafer chips.

    Sensors will detect when the diaper has been soiled, as well as monitor body temperature, detect abnormalities in urine composition, and even help prevent bed sores by tracking how long it’s been since a person has moved.

    Could smart diaper data, sensors and data analytics become part of a quality and safeguard framework. Think about what this would mean for the skills and management of attendant care staff.

    And while there is an urgent need for discussion about jobs as part of Scheme sustainability, this discussion is incomplete without a discussion on the rapidly changing nature of work, an augmented services and care ecosystem of AI, robotics, immersive technologies, sensing and remote servicing.

    Worryingly, most of these innovations would likely not be funded, not because these are not reasonable and necessary, but because there is not a culture or capability that understands the ROI of AT to Scheme sustainability.

    As ARATA stated, creating a culture of ROI – not just “reasonable and necessary” – is absolutely necessary to fully leverage the $4 billion AT market to transform the jobs and skills market.

    And over 10 years, that’s a $40 billion market.

    It is unfathomable that the government is driving a narrative on Scheme sustainability, when the actuarial forecasting itself lacks any analysis on the ROI or adoption of AT.

    And with the recommendations of the AHRC Human Rights and Technology Report, assistive technology has suddenly become a very significant human rights, sustainability and economic question.

    But there is no clear pathway for the market.

    I have lost count of the many entrepreneurs, providers and companies who have sought my help navigating the massive NDIS AT ecosystem and what it takes for a new innovation to be accepted as a funded support.

    In the lead up to the Federal election, all parties should address the NDIS as an assistive technology innovation market catalyst – that enables human rights – and not squander this massive market on the false altar of cost-cutting.

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  • Online Safety Bill is a way forward online

    It’s been widely said the tech companies are the railroads or oil companies of the 21st century. These companies wield enormous power. They have done much good, but they have the potential to do much harm.

    It’s why the Online Safety Bill is an important piece of legislation currently before the Senate. It’s a very welcome initiative. It brings to bear a simple, single framework for online safety.

    Setting out the basic online safety expectations and arming the eSafety Commissioner with power to effectively ensure people are protected should be broadly welcomed.

    The fact is people are being bullied and abused often under the cover of anonymity. There’s nowhere else in our society where you can, under the cover of darkness, pretend to be someone else and attack people.

    So it’s important we look to increase penalties for the use of a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence, from three to five years.

    Over the past few months, the Morrison Government has introduced world-leading media bargaining code legislation. Australia has led the world in trying to ensure publishers and public interest journalists are paid for their work.

    Just as large tech companies cannot threaten a country, nor can they have more power than any other non-state actor in the world today where they can bully and defeat a country.

    As a government we’ve been prepared to intervene to ensure consumers are protected. I am not in favour of regulation for regulation’s sake but there is much content on social media which already contravenes our laws.

    As I said in the Senate chamber, social media really has become the wild west.What we need to do is balance civil liberties against the desire to protect people and these are judgements that should be exercised by a minister and they should be disallowable.

    Australia’s eSafety Commissioner was the first dedicated online safety regulator to be established in the world and acts as a safety net for when online services fail to keep Australians safe online.

    The Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, is doing a great job but the framework of having the minister set the regulation is an important one.

    Ultimately, we want to have a system where Australia is not a backwater. We want to see technology used but we also want to make sure people are protected.

    We don’t want to see people bullied and harassed online, we don’t want to see people attacked under the cover of anonymity.

    We have laws in New South Wales against anti-incitement and defamation, so social media should not provide a back door to breaking the law.

    What I want to see is a scheme that is ultimately going to protect people from cyberbullying and image abuse in a way which balances out the privacy concerns which are understandable and legitimately held.

    Australia had a big win with the media bargaining code. We now need to build on that.

    This government has a great record of being prepared to intervene where there’s consumer detriment or broader community detriment in relation to tech companies.

    We should use this opportunity to lead the world again.

    The post Online Safety Bill is a way forward online appeared first on InnovationAus.

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  • Meet the advisors: 2021 Awards for Excellence

    There are a lot of awards programs in tech and innovation in this country. But the celebrations don’t always reflect the key attributes of new companies and new industries that will help underwrite a transition to a more complex economy that derives wealth from its intellectual muscle.

    With the launch of the InnovationAus 2021 Awards for Excellence, we tried to take a fresh look at what’s important, and what the nation must get behind in building a successful innovation ecosystem.

    We are well beyond the celebration of the shiny. We are looking to put a huge spotlight on companies and organisations with the outstanding attributes that will collectively change Australia.

    We’re calling our gala awards ceremony in Sydney on November 18 a Commercial Disco – and a disco it most certainly will be! – but we have built these awards on a serious foundation of rigour and ambition.

    Awards for Excellence 2021
    The InnovationAus Awards for Excellence expert advisory panel

    The idea for the Commercial Disco is all about this program of Commercial Discovery. It is about identifying and celebrating those genuine Australian heroes who have built on an idea, who have enjoyed commercial success or social impact or both, who have taken research and turned it into product.

    In consultation with our Expert Advisory Board, we have chosen to focus these awards on five key judging criteria. Our advisors are:

    • Professor Roy Green – Chair of UTS Innovation Council, Chair of Port of Newcastle
    • Luli Adeyemo – Founder/Director Best Case Scenario
    • David Wright – Executive Chair Rozetta Technologies and Managing Director Aqua Ventures
    • Claire McFarland – Honorary Associate United States Studies Centre
    • Adrian Beer – Chief Executive, METS Ignited Industry Growth centre
    • Dianna Somerville – Chair Regional Development Australia Riverina, Founder Regional PitchFest
    • Phil Morle – Partner Main Sequence Ventures and Chair V2 Foods
    • Wilma James – Founder and Innovation Adviser Profitable Innovation

    These experts helped us to shape what was important. They are a diverse group from different geographies and disciplines and areas of focus. But we are hugely grateful for the input. The judging of the 11 categories will hinge on five criteria based on the expert feedback.

    Commercial success
    Judges will review what commercial success looks like for your organisation, your export potential and success stories within the international marketplace. We want to see evidence of your company’s track record in creating a product or service, then effectively selling to domestic and/or international markets. It’s a Commercial Discoveery after all.

    Translation of intellectual property
    Intellectual property (IP) is developed in different environments and there are many strategies to successfully bring the research outputs to market. Judges will reward excellence in the translation of IP – through programs that enable successful research collaborations across various sectors as well as those companies that continue to develop IP internally.

    Impact
    What is your company’s impact on its sector? Does your product or service take Australian smarts and create new jobs and wealth for the nation, or make the lives of citizens better? Does your innovation inspire through originality and ambition? Judges will review how entrants are aligning their success measures –such as addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals or CSIRO’s Challenge Missions.

    Non-R&D innovations
    We will also be looking for business innovations that have helped your organisation translate its IP for commercial or societal success. Elements will include your organisation’s business strategy, a successful pivot, or its adaptability to major challenges, risk or unexpected outcomes. It will look at your leadership and human resources strategy and all the other non-R&D factors that are vital to successful growth.

    Applied technologies
    Judges also want to hear stories of organisations that have adapted or pivoted research and innovations to build a product or service for an entirely different sector. What horizonal applications of these particular technologies have been used to solve a challenge? How are they themselves consumers of emerging tech to create new products?

    The Awards are now open and accepting entries. Early-bird entries will be accepted up to 5pm on Wednesday June 30. The FINAL DEADLINE for submissions is 5pm Wednesday July 21.

    The judging panel for each of the category areas will be unveiled later in the program. It is worth noting that no InnovationAus staff will be involved in the judging.

    These awards are not a single night of celebration. It is a six-month program of activities – from articles to podcasts to video profile – aimed at giving maximum exposure to the bright stars of our ecosystem.

    Enter now and enjoy the ride! See you at the disco.

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  • Data sovereignty issues are complex but critical

    Sovereignty issues have shifted into the spotlight across a number of sectors in Australia due to the supply chain challenges wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    This should raise important questions for local businesses not just about physical supply chains, but where and how critical data is stored.

    Australian businesses and executives need a better understanding of data sovereignty and the issues around storing data through a foreign company. And the federal government has an important role to play in this mission, Dekko Secure chief executive officier Jacqui Nelson said.

    According to Ms Nelson, more Australian companies need to consider these issues and to actively investigate and understand how their data is stored and what laws in other jurisdictions can be applied to it.

    Jacqui Nelson
    F Dekko Secure chief executive officer Jacqui Nelson

    “Organisations need to start thinking about sovereignty as a policy goal. The Big Tech players have a role to play but there also needs to be a focus on Australia’s own local capability,” Ms Nelson said.

    “As an Australian company I comply with all laws, but once we host on a different server owned by a foreign country, that data is subject to that country’s laws as well. While I understand that, currently we’re seeing some organisations that don’t get it.”

    Dekko Secure is an Australian cybersecurity firm founded in 2015. It offers technology that replaces high-risk electronic exchanges such as video conferencing, file sharing, email and chat with a new standard in privacy.

    Its main products include DekkoVault, a secure document and file-sharing service, and DekkoLynx, a recently-launched service for confidential video meetings between government departments at the “protected” level, as well as for use by other organisations handling highly sensitive information, such as law firms.

    Both of these Dekko products use end-to-end encryption.

    Dekko currently stores its data in Australian-based data centres running Microsoft Azure. Ms Nelson said she wants to also utilise Australian providers such as Vault Cloud or AU Cloud, but this will become more practical when these offerings are more established, and there is more knowledge of data sovereignty among clients.

    The government should work with local players and their clients to educate them on these issues, Ms Nelson said.

    “With heightened focus on our national security posture, it makes sense for government to work with local companies to be able to provide those services,” she said.

    “It’s about access to the right talent to help providers scale. Establishing local sovereignty that competes at scale is tough without very deep support from the government.”

    “Starting at the bottom of the chain is always better than trying to fix it at the other end.”

    The government also has a role to play in educating the private sector on the importance of these issues, she said.

    “I don’t think enough people in the private sector actually know the right questions to ask in relation to where their data is being housed. There’s a huge education piece that needs to be worked on,” Ms Nelson said.

    “For me the biggest challenge is getting the message out to organisations that they really need to up their questions of their providers. They need to not just accept they’ve got data centres here and that they’re secure, but they need to deeply understand which parts of the channel are secure and where the vulnerable points are.”

    This discussion should start with understanding what data sovereignty actually means, she said.

    “There are challenges around the word sovereignty – it’s a little bit like security, it means so many things to so many people,” Ms Nelson said. “The devil is always in the detail and there’s a challenge in communicating it with customers.”

    “COVID and changes in the geopolitical landscape have pushed the conversation to a much broader audience, but in the private sector there is some confusion about what sovereignty means in this space.”

    With the federal government preparing to pass new critical infrastructure laws which will expand security requirements to a range of new sectors, now is an important time for Australian businesses to consider their own data sovereignty.

    “It captures places like education for example, where sovereignty hasn’t really ever played into their thinking. Now around vaccines and COVID, those conversations are starting to be elevated, we’re hearing a lot more noise from those industries,” Ms Nelson said

    Dekko Secure, an Australian owned and operated technology company that provides industry-leading end-to-end encryption. This article was produced in partnership with Dekko Secure as part of the Connect with Confidence sponsored content series by Dekko Secure and InnovationAus.

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  • ASX-listed WOA to develop plant-based protein products

    It is easy to be distressed if you dwell too long on some of the facts around how our food is produced – unethical livestock conditions and farming practices that can strip the land of its soil and vegetation.

    But in Western Australia a small company that promotes regenerative agricultural techniques that respect animals and build biodiversity and the ability of the land to capture carbon is fast gaining traction.

    Wide Open Agriculture has just announced it will will spend $1.6 million to construct a pilot plant and research facility at Kewdale in Perth to manufacture food-grade lupin and other plant based protein products.

    farm
    Wide Open Agriculture: Developing new plant-based protein products for a growing global market

    While lupins are commonly used for high-protein animal feed, the factory will also process more familiar chickpeas, lentils and fava beans.

    WOA has previously teamed up with CSIRO and Curtin University to create regenerative, lupin-based protein products.

    Initial pilot production will be used by WOA’s Dirty Clean Food and Oat Up brands, which already cover an extensive range of carbon-neutral oat and goat milk drinks, grass fed meats, ethically raised pork and wild caught seafood.

    The pilot will also create prototype products for third parties developing new products such as plant-based burgers, drinks, yoghurts and gluten-free alternatives.

    Managing director Ben Cole said: “Our in-house pilot plant will offer WOA unmatched global capability and know-how in the production of lupin-based proteins with a unique techno-function sourced from WA’s leading regenerative farms.”

    Regenerative agriculture is a system of farming practices that increases biodiversity, enriches soils and captures carbon in soil and aboveground biomass – a sharp contrast to the high carbon footprint associated with many current staples such as farmed fish and beef.

    WOA has patented its processes for protein extraction and modification and already has markets for its own brands in Australia and South-East Asia.

    With demand outstripping supply in today’s plant-based protein market, estimated to be worth $26.66 billion annually, we will be hearing a lot molre about processors such as WOA.

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  • Bronwyn Fox named as CSIRO chief scientist

    Swinburne University’s Professor Bronwyn Fox will be CSIRO’s next Chief Scientist, the university announced on Wednesday afternoon.

    Fox joined Swinburne in 2015 — as the head of its Factory of the Future — from Deakin University. Following a Directorship of its Manufacturing Futures Research Institute, Fox has been Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research and Enterprise in February 2020.

    The university praised her “strong reputation for bringing together researchers from across scientific domains, integrating digital capability and working with industry.” Vice Chancellor Professor Pascale Quester added that she had helped position Swinburne “at the forefront of advanced manufacturing.”

    Fox described re-joining CSIRO — where she began her career as a research assistant in the 1990s — as a “complete circle.”

    Bronwyn Fox
    Bronwyn Fox has been named the new CSIRO chief scientist

    “I am passionate about championing science research and capability, as well as working with industry and fostering STEM careers,” she said.

    “I am grateful for my time at Swinburne and proud of what we have achieved. I am confident that Swinburne will continue to bring people and technology together to build a better world and cement their leadership position in the technology and education sector.”

    The exact time of her departure was not given, and Swinburne said she would remain there the “next few months to ensure a smooth transition.”

    CSIRO’s previous Chief Scientist, Dr Cathy Foley, began as the nation’s Chief Scientist in January.

    This story was originally published by @AuManufacturing. You can subscribe to the @AuManufacturing newsletter here.

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  • Net-zero challenge needs both a tech and political fix

    The Net Zero Australia study announced by Melbourne University fills one of the missing links in Australian emissions reduction and energy policy. Despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s false dichotomy between technology or taxation, getting to net-zero requires the right politics not just the right technology.

    In a world where ‘productivity’ and ‘innovation’ are words that are used with a near religious reverence, where every known social or economic challenge is seemingly solved by one or the other, it is sometimes hard to remember that politics counts.

    Prime Minister Scott Morrison told us at the National Press Club in January 2020 that ‘our climate action agenda is a practical one, it goes beyond targets and summits and it’s driven by technology, not taxation.’

    For good measure he told us again in Q&A at the NPC in February this year, saying that when it comes to emissions ‘Australia’s approach will be technology driven, not taxes driven, not higher electricity prices, not an electricity tax.’

    green parliament
    Challenge: The technology and political foundations of a net-zero Australia

    In the speech itself he stated: ‘Our goal is to reach net zero emissions as soon as possible, and preferably by 2050.’

    The fact that he has stated it and repeated many times in between the two speeches and since, doesn’t make it logical. No one who has ever supported putting a price on carbon, which has (courtesy of the Gillard and Abbott show) become permanently equated with a tax, has claimed that we have all the technology we need for transition.

    While a price on carbon will help make existing more expensive technology viable by recognising the (external) cost of carbon, the intent includes to create incentives for more technology R&D. That the ‘conservatives’ within the Coalition prefer direct government intervention over a classical economics prescription explains why they shouldn’t erroneously be called the ‘right.’ The latter appellation should be reserved for those who eschew excessive Government intervention.

    But not only has Morrison set up a false dichotomy, he has a manifestly insufficient ‘technology roadmap.’ In the Executive Summary to its 2017 Review of Climate Change Policies the Coalition government noted:

    The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has endorsed recommendation 3.1 of the Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market (the Finkel Review) to develop a long-term emissions reduction strategy by 2020. This is consistent with the approach adopted by most G20 countries. The Government will develop a strategy in consultation with businesses, the community and state and territory governments.

    In section 3.6 of that report headed A long-term climate change strategy, the government made the following commitment:

    The Finkel Review recommended that by 2020, the Australian Government should develop a whole-of-economy emissions reduction strategy for 2050 to increase investor confidence. Consistent with the government’s response to the Finkel Review, the government will start developing in 2018 a long-term emissions reduction strategy by 2020.

    The government’s Technology Investment Roadmap and First Low Emissions Technology Statement do not constitute such a strategy.

    Thankfully, the academic world is filling the void. The Melbourne Energy Institute at the University of Melbourne has announced a two year project Net Zero Australia to ‘analyse how Australia can achieve a net zero economy by 2050.’

    The project (tagged NZAu) is a partnership between the Universities of Melbourne and Queensland, the Nous Group and Princeton University. It is based on Princeton’s Net Zero America. The Princeton modelling begins with a selection of scenarios for reduction pathways.

    Scenario analysis is incredibly important. Ever since scenario planning was developed by Shell in the early 1970s they have been recognised as an effective planning tool to deal with the fact that the future is uncertain.

    How we use and produce energy in 2050 can be subject to a vast array of variables, not least of which is the extent to which we might be able to reindustrialise Australia using access to abundant cheap energy and the development of robotics.

    The NZAu study is going to use scenarios and then ‘present the costs and benefits of each scenario.’ This is potentially a misuse of scenarios.

    It suggests that scenarios are a pick your own adventure tool, whereas in long-range planning they identify alternative futures the occurrence of which is not entirely within your own control.

    The article linked above notes that the Shell scenario approach became famous because in the 1972 scenarios, in an era where recent history was of uninterrupted growth, one was for ‘a disruption in oil supply and a subsequent rise in prices.’ In October 1974 this scenario rapidly materialised with the Arab Oil Embargo following the Yom Kippur War.

    While decision makers can’t choose between scenarios, they can choose between policy options that make one scenario more likely than another (for example by investing heavily in RD&D to reduce the cost of a technology) or by making policy choices that are the most robust across all scenarios.

    The NZAu announcement says the study ‘will not recommend a preferred pathway or critique current policies.’ This is already in part false, because undertaking the study itself is a critique of the policy making process that hasn’t undertaken the study itself.

    Neither the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Integrated System Plan nor the Energy Security Board’s Post 2025 Market Design Study develops scenarios for a net zero future and develops pathways to achieve them.

    This then brings us to the core issue. It takes more than technology to obtain a net-zero future, it takes policy. And policy implementation is the ultimate objective of politics. This is the subject of a post by Mark Diesendorf on John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations.

    His starting point is Alan Finkel’s Quarterly Essay Getting to Zero. Finkel has been the government’s right hand man on technology and energy – first in his review of security of the National Electricity Market which recommended a strategy, and secondly as the Chair of the Ministerial Reference Panel developing the technology strategy.

    Diesendorf’s first critique is that a ethical/social justice view of Australia’s obligations is that we need to decarbonise more quickly than just a linear reduction to net-zero by 2050.

    Whatever the trajectory, he is correct that the choice of the trajectory is a political question. It can and should be informed by advice from experts on the implications of alternative trajectories, but the final choice is political.

    As I have discussed recently, Morrison views the political choice primarily through a lens of robust nationalism.

    But Diesedorf uses his answer to the social justice question to argue that to do its share of decarbonisation Australia will have to reduce its energy consumption. This is a very long stretch.

    There are industries and opportunities which would see Australia increase its energy consumption and doing more to reduce global emissions; steel and lithium being two. Twiggy Forrest is famously developing plans for ‘green steel.’

    In their submission to the Technology Roadmap Energy Consumers Australia used the example of the refining of lithium as a case study. A technology roadmap to use renewable energy resources to refine lithium in Australia rather than have the ore mostly go to China to be refined using fossil fuels seems to be a double win. But it wouldn’t be consistent with the thesis that we must reduce energy use.

    There are very few challenges that can’t be solved if you can apply enough physical energy. Desalinated water has been described as ‘liquid energy’ and the wind farms beside Lake George were first developed so the New South Wales Government could use carbon free energy to make water.

    Unfortunately, the Australian government has an idiotic project which it calls the National Energy Productivity Plan. It is idiotic because it defines energy productivity as GDP divided by national energy consumption and then sets a goal to improve this measure by 40 per cent between 2015 and 2030. There hasn’t been an annual report on progress since 2018 and hopefully the plan is being quietly forgotten.

    There isn’t a choice between technology and taxation to get to net zero emissions; technology development is essential. But technology alone is not sufficient. There is still a need for political decision making and that needs to be informed by good analysis of the opportunities.

    NZAu will help fill the information gap the Australian Government faces in policy making. That the study wasn’t commissioned by Government reflects the poor quality of policy decision making.

    Footnote: Between 2015 and 2020 David Havyatt was Senior Economist at Energy Consumers Australia and wrote the submission referred to in the article. The NZAu project is sponsored, among others, by the Minderoo Foundation whose philanthropy is supported by Tattarang and its portfolio of businesses; Tattarang is one of Australia’s largest private investment groups and is owned by the Forrest family.

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  • Finally, VC wakes to innovation in manufacturing

    For a very long time now in Australia it has been possible to get venture capital for a yet-another gold mine or some FinTech app.

    But when manufacturing innovators go looking for capital, other than a few angel investors, the cupboard has been bare. This despite us sitting on one of the world’s largest pools of savings in our superannuation system.

    However just as there is a sense that there is a technology-based manufacturing revival underway, there are the beginnings of a venture capital sector that understands manufacturing, the people working in it and the potential it offers to create global businesses and indeed, wealth.

    In the past week alone there has been news on three very promising fronts.

    Tonsley innovation district
    Tonsley innovation district – Home to manufacturing innovators

    CSIRO-backed Main Sequence Ventures revealed its venture science model, which starts by identifying a global challenge, and brings together state of the art technology, private investment and industry expertise to make an impact on a large scale.

    One of its first investments was to back Tritium founder Paul Sernia to found hydrogen production and storage manufacturer Endua.

    Main Sequence Partner Martin Duursma said: “A core focus of our new fund is helping uncover scientific discoveries, and finding the right partners to turn them into real, tangible technologies so we can reverse our climate impact.”

    Also this week agrifood VC Tenacious revealed it has raised $35 million to support early stage startups with tech-enabled new business models that are helping agriculture transition to a climate change resilient future.

    It was founded by agrifood expert Matthew Pryor, co-founder of farm water monitoring and control system developer Observant, and Sarah Nolet of agrifood tech advisory firm AgThentic, who were frustrated by a lack of conviction in the investor community.

    Tenacious has invested in waste management startup Goterra, and SwarmFarm Robotics.

    But the most developed – and exciting is Adelaide VC Innovyz which is the company behind three listed manufacturing success stories – additive manufacturing equipment manufacturers Titomic and Amaero International, and ultra-fast welding technology developer K-TIG.

    Innovyz has worked with 80 innovations since 2009 through Innovyz Commercialisation Programs, creating companies it manages based on university research, but only after they have been through a process of technical, scientific and market analysis.

    It recently expanded into the United States and is now raising a new $30 million venture fund, according to Innovyz executive chairman Brett Jackson.

    He told @AuManufacturing: “It will allow us to accelerate our commercialisation of university and other research in the areas of advanced materials and manufacturing.

    “In the current geo-political environment, sovereign manufacturing capability is only going to become more and more important and we’re proud to be at the cutting edge of that.”

    There are certainly significant tax concessions offered by the federal government for early stage investment to find and commercialise innovations and bring them to market.

    Interestingly, Innovyz is based at the Tonsley Innovation Precinct in Adelaide, the former Mitsubishi vehicle assembly plant, which has emerged as an incubator of manufacturing skills, technology and companies.

    Tonsley’s mixing of campuses of TAFE and Flinders University with innovative businesses ranging from BAE Systems to Sage Automation and Micro-X, actually employs more people on-site than were employed by Mitsubishi in its heyday.

    Combining great technology, leaders and managers and finance – as these three venture capitalists do – should give us confidence that manufacturing can rise from its nadir, stronger, more innovative and technology-intensive and profitable.

    Picture: Tonsley Innovation Precinct

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  • Australia-US in talks on digital trade pact

    Australia’s ambassador to the United States Arthur Sinodinos has revealed a dialogue has begun with the Biden Administration aimed at securing a digital economy trade agreement along the same lines as the deal struck with Singapore last December.

    The COVID-inspired acceleration of digitalisation efforts among corporates and governments across the world had created “a lot of interest in how we take that further,” Mr Sinodinos says.

    Such a trade deal would cover issues such as standardised digital payment rules, data localisation and data privacy, with the aim of breaking down some of the barriers to trade, particularly aimed at opening opportunities for small and medium enterprises.

    Arthur Sinodinos
    Digital trade talks: Ambassador to the US Arthur Sinodinos

    While using the agreement with Singapore as a kind of prototype or template, Mr Sinodinos said Australia’s preference was for a regional approach, bringing in partners like Japan, South Korean, Singapore and others.

    A key aim would be to set agreed rules and standards for trade in the digital economy, a recognition of geostrategic competition as it overlaps with global trade issues.

    Speaking to InnovationAus through the Commercial Disco podcast, Mr Sinodinos said he hoped the focus on SME’s would be attractive to a US administration that has been focused on a worker-led recovery and SME’s being such a big employer, both here and in the US.

    “We are talking to the administration about a digital trade agreement which can be modelled on the one we’ve got with Singapore,” the Ambassador said. “We prefer a regional model, so that the US, Australia, Singapore, Japan and others can set the rules and standards in the region.”

    “That’s something that’s been getting a lot of discussion here in Washington among the people we work with,” he said.

    “We particularly put a focus on SMEs because they employ a lot of people, and we think that would appeal to the US when it talks about worker-centric trade policy.

    “In some ways we think this can be low-hanging fruit, because we have prototype agreements like the Australia-Singapore agreement. And the US has its own agreements on digital in the region.

    “And the digital economy is an area that is expanding very quickly. So it’s a good one to do,” he said.

    “If payment systems for example can be standardised and recognised across borders, that’s a big help – particularly for the smaller companies.”

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  • ‘Huge opportunities’ as US recovers: Sinodinos

    As the US economy roars back into rude health, there are huge opportunities for local innovators to benefit from the COVID re-alignment of global supply chains, according to Australia’s ambassador to the United States Arthur Sinodinos.

    From critical minerals to an array of emerging technologies and advanced manufacturing, Mr Sinodinos said the Biden Administration’s sober assessment of global supply chains presented significant opportunities for “trusted partners”.

    While COVID had created intense scrutiny of supply chains and a focus on creating greater self-sufficiency in the US, there is a recognition that it cannot do everything and there are areas where Australia comparative advantage creates opportunity.

    Growing geopolitical competition is a clear consideration, and Australia was working through the Quad (the Australia, US, Japan and India strategic alignment) and through the bilateral Frontier Technologies Dialogue with the United States to sharpen those opportunities.

    “[There is] a big focus on supply chains and how to reconfigure supply chains given the experience of COVID,” Mr Sinodinos told InnovationAus.

    “Some of this is about great self-sufficiency of supply. But the Americans realise they can’t do it all on their own. So, they are looking at trusted allies and partners,” he said.

    “They’ve got executive orders to look at five to six areas that includes telecommunications, biotechnology, semiconductor chips, health and clean energy. All of these are areas where the US wants to do more, and we can do more with them.

    “It’s actually a huge opportunity for Australian innovators and I’m excited about what we can do.”

    Those opportunities would certainly include the production and processing of rare earther and critical minerals, but also potentially using this as the basis for stronger downstream advanced manufacturing, including in areas like electric vehicle production.

    Mr Sinodinos said he was working to ensure that the tightened foreign investment rules in Australia did not act as an impediment to investment by American companies that wanted to do more in Australia, particularly when it came to helping Australian startups get going.

    While President Joe Biden Administration has maintained the same Buy American trade thrust as the Trump Administration – Mr Biden signed a Buy American executive order this year to focus government procurement on local suppliers – Mr Sinodinos was confident this would not impact opportunities for Australian trade.

    “There has been a lot of focus on Buy American and this has been extended into this administration, and there have been executive orders whereby if supply chains are reconfigured, how can the US maximise domestic production,” Mr Sinodinos said.

    “But they have recognised even as they have been doing those executive orders that allies and partners do have a role to play. And it has been explicit for those of us that are in free trade agreements with the US and who are involved with the global procurement agreements through the WTO and others [that] it is not going to infringe on those obligations.

    “We recognise that this administration has made election commitments about a ‘middle class’ foreign policy, about how does it make trade policy work for American workers,” he said. “But within that, they recognise the role of allies and partners.”

    “So, whether it’s in the defence industry or other sectors they have identified as priorities, we think there is plenty of scope for cooperation.

    “And we think that Australia, where we have comparative advantage in a number of areas of science and technology, it is a particularly good time to be engaging with the US.”

    You can listen to the full podcast interview with Arthur Sinodinos here.

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  • Being proactive on a small nuclear option

    A small piece of news last week gave a small amount of hope to Australians wanting nuclear energy as part of our future energy mix.

    Among 60 recommendations in a NSW Productivity Commission white paper was lifting a ban on nuclear electricity generation for small modular reactors (SMRs.)

    These are a new variety of nuclear fission reactors, defined as generating under 300 megawatts per module. Some will tell you that SMRs are not all that new, and have been operating in some form as long as there have been nuclear-powered submarines and ice-breakers.

    According to Michael Sharpe, National Director for Industry at the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre and the founder of a new Nuclear Capabilities Forum, they’re an answer to high energy prices faced by Australian companies.

    “My plan is for more Australian manufacturers to join the existing global supply chains for the nuclear power industry and build those skills,” says Michael Sharpe.

    NuScale
    NuScale: Is there room in Australia for small-scale nuclear reactors in the energy mix?

    “For a stronger manufacturing future in Australia we must tackle these big issues,” he tells @AuManufacturing, mentioning pressures at aluminium smelters in Portland and Tomago, and Brickworks’ claim that their products are cheaper to make in the US and then ship here versus make here.

    “We are the only OECD country to not have nuclear power. We have massive reserves of uranium, yet we dig the stuff out of the ground and ship it all over the world for others to benefit.”

    ANSTO explains that SMRs have three main differences to traditional nuclear generators, around simplicity in design and installation, being prefabricated and then installed onsite; a higher level of inherent safety; and Emergency Planning Zones — a site’s boundary for SMRs versus a 16 kilometre radius needed to satisfy US regulators.

    Other claimed benefits include compatibility with current electricity grids, ability to load follow (stepping in for intermittency in renewable generation), and no requirement for a large supply of water.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency counts around 50 different designs worldwide. Designers so far include Westinghouse, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy and NuScale Power.

    The latter describes its modules (up to 12 can be stacked together at an installation) as providing 77 megawatts of power, weighing 700 tons, and 65 feet tall with 9 feet diameter.

    NuScale received the first design approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year. Its first commercial operation — 12 modules at Idaho Falls — is scheduled to begin operating in 2026.

    ‘We would be surprised’

    Dr Edward Obbard, a nuclear materials engineer and senior lecturer at the University of NSW, sees SMRs as making sense in terms of energy security and goals to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

    “We can only keep on trying to square the circle and come up with a national energy supply without any primary fuel for so long,” he tells @AuManufacturing.

    Dr Obbard’s university runs Australia’s only nuclear engineering education program, and he says Australian R&D capacity is concentrated at one national lab (ANSTO) and a few universities.

    He adds that it is an industry sector with a lot of overlap with other technical fields — such as civil, electrical, instrumentation and control. If existing R&D in those fields was directed at specific nuclear applications, “then very soon we would be surprised to find ourselves comparable to other small-ish countries using nuclear energy already, e.g. Sweden, Finland, Spain, Czech republic.”

    Another perspective is from David Fox, General Manager at LA Services, who would also like to see a local nuclear industry flourish.

    He points out the recommendation last week is limited to electricity generation, and an important sovereign capability aspect seems overlooked.

    Nuclear energy is a highly-advanced industry, requiring an ecosystem of top-notch scientific, engineering and manufacturing skills to sustain it.

    “If we were able to get past the current polarising electricity generation debate and small modular reactor innovation became an acceptable means of energy for a range of applications, then it would bring a new dimension to the local pressure equipment industry and the smart industrial asset arena,” says Mr Fox, whose company specialises in pressure vessel fabrication.

    The discussion needs to be framed in terms of lifting the country’s overall industrial sophistication. Examples are in the ways it feeds into other high-technology sectors, such as defence and space.

    “The push for Australia to develop a cutting-edge competitive space industry is evident. So how do our scientists, engineers and investors do that when nuclear thermal propulsion is off the table for regulatory reasons, and yet other advanced nations are developing the capability?” he asks.

    An export opportunity?

    There are plenty of criticisms when it comes to lifting bans on nuclear power.

    For every SMR enthusiast, you can probably find another describing it as vapourware. A comment last week from ETU National and NSW Secretary, Allen Hicks, is illustrative: “small modular reactors, a technology that has been ‘just around the corner’ since the 1970’s but still doesn’t exist…”

    The economics — pro or con — are impossible to be clear on, given the lack of adoption, and are based on hypotheticals.

    Waste disposal is another issue.

    And before any reactor is operating in Australia, you should probably add the time between now and laws changing, plus at least seven years.

    According to Sydney-based consultancy SMR Nuclear Technology, construction time would be three years, following four years of “community consultation, site selection, feasibility studies, environmental and development approvals and arranging financial facilities.”

    On the other hand, factors such as targets for lowering emissions can only strengthen the argument for nuclear power. The International Energy Agency sees it making a contribution in a zero-emission scenario, with “output rising steadily by 40% to 2030 and doubling by 2050, though its overall share of generation is below 10% in 2050.”

    The pro-nuclear segment in Australia sees an opportunity for manufacturers to be involved.

    Dr Obbard says capacity generation in the gigawatt range would mean multiple SMR projects going ahead, perhaps consecutively around the nation, “and a community of specialist trades growing up in that.

    “Repetition is the whole point [of] SMR economics. Once you can do it locally then immediately you have an export opportunity as well. Australia has all the basic infrastructure to manufacture and operate SMRs.”

    Sharpe believes there’s no point waiting around. He says his group is planning its second meeting, with NuScale’s head of production to join by Zoom.

    “My plan is for more Australian manufacturers to join the existing global supply chains for the nuclear power industry and build those skills,” he explains.

    “We can grow business opportunities globally with manufacturing of reactors and other parts as required. We will build local jobs here and we’re stepping up to export now. We are ready for a future that includes nuclear power in Australia, today.”

    Featured picture: NuScale

    This story was originally published by @AuManufacturing. You can subscribe to the @AuManufacturing newsletter here.

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  • Growth Centres are on their own from 2022

    The federal government has all but confirmed that the six Industry Growth Centres will be on their own and receive no government funding after June 2022, at which time they are expected to transition to become ‘self-sufficient’.

    This is a proposition considered to be highly unlikely according to a secret report on the growth centres, revealed by @AuManufacturing last week, that the government has been sitting on for six months.

    In an afternoon of questioning in Senate estimates on Friday of officials from the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources and assistant industry development minister, Senator Jonathon Duniam, no hope of further funding was forthcoming.

    In a session marked by non-answers to questions and others from Labor Senator Murray Watt taken on notice, it was left to general manager industry capability Donna Looney to issue what amounts to a death sentence to the six centres.

    Growth Centres
    New direction? The Industry Growth Centres are on their from next year

    Ms Looney said: “The original intent of the IGCs was that they would have four years of funding. That has since been extended two years, but the intent was always that following the four years the Growth Centres would transition to self sufficiency and find alternate funding.”

    She said the Industry Growth Centres initiative would continue after that date, suggesting that new centres more closely mirroring the focus areas of the government’s modern manufacturing initiative might be established.

    But: “The additional funding has been extended twice (and) it is not that the initiative will not continue but that those Growth Centres will have that additional second tranche of funding out to the end of June 2022.”

    During questioning about @AuManufacturing’s reports on the secret report by consultants ACIL Allen, the point was made that the Growth Centres in Advanced Manufacturing (AMGC), Cyber Security, Food and Agribusiness (FIAL), Medtech and Pharmaceuticals (MTP Connect), Mining Equipment, Technology and Services (METS Ignited), and Oil, Gas and Energy Resources (NERA) were always designed to be self-sufficient.

    Asked why has there been no commitment beyond one more year, industry department secretary David Fredericks said: “That’s the decision government has made, Senator.”

    However the ACIL Allen report’s key findings are: “In ACIL Allen’s view, noting that none of the international comparators operate on purely private sector funding, it is unlikely the GCs will become self-sustaining.”

    It is true some of the Growth Centres believe they can have a future after June 2022, but there is meagre evidence to suggest this is realistic.

    Asked by Senator Watt about alternative funding it was suggested that AMGC had entered into an agreement with the Northern Territory government to deliver programs on its behalf.

    Not mentioned in the hearing is the fact the MTP Connect is also administering grant funds for the Department of Health.

    But none of that demonstrates that self-efficiency is likely.

    Senator Watt noted that ACIL Allen had found the GC’s ‘lack the resourcing and structures to drive transformational change at a sectoral level’ and that ‘…additional funding is required to help GC’s scale’.

    Senator Watt: “Is the reason the government is not releasing this report because it doesn’t want made public concerns about funding of an initiative that this report has found to be an efficient way to use taxpayer funds. Is that why it is still on departmental desks six months after it has been received?”

    There was no answer to this question.

    Let’s for a moment put aside that the major flaw in the design of the Growth Centres is they do not marshal public sector research along with grant funds to solve industry problems, as do the Cooperative Research Centres.

    The central problem with the government’s belief that self-sufficiency is possible then comes down to the poor design and lack of funding of the growth centres compared to overseas models – issues made clear in the $400,000 plus consultants report.

    There are 71 German Fraunhofer institutes that receive 2.8 billion Euros (A$4.4billion) of public funds annually compared to the $50 million a year received by the Growth Centres.

    The UK’s Catapult program was designed from the start on a model of one third core public funding, one third obtained by competing for other government grant programs and one third from contract research.

    Our Growth Centres only get core government funding. Their only feasible additional route of securing contract funding from industry is simply not possible.

    The Growth Centres dispense grants based on their deep knowledge of the sectors in which they operate and provide valuable support to businesses.

    Whereas the Catapult centres are major research centres at universities and other public sector research groups which have been massively capitalised so they have equipment and facilities that can contract out work.

    No private company is going to contract what is essentially a capital city office to carry out research on their behalf…they would contract directly with universities or CSIRO.

    This leaves me speculating on that the government intends. Does it intend to set up another group of Growth Centres based on the same flawed design, abandoning the original six?

    Or does it intend simply to allocate the $800 million in the forward estimates for Growth Centres directly as grants announced by the ministers’ office?

    The latter would be a disaster for manufacturing, and the former just a continuation of a scheme that its own review has found is in need of serious reform.

    This story was originally published by @AuManufacturing. You can subscribe to the @AuManufacturing newsletter here.

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  • Open for entry: InnovationAus Awards 2021

    Entries are now open for all 11 categories of the InnovationAus 2021 Awards for Excellence, the premium six-month program aimed at identifying and rewarding Australia’s best and brightest individuals and companies.

    The InnovationAus Awards for Excellence seeks to highlight the people and the organisations that are driving the creation of new products and services, and new industries across the Australian economies.

    These are the national heroes of an economy in transition: The people who are creating jobs, creating wealth, and creating high-value social impact, all in the national interest.

    These awards represent 11 categories that map to the areas of strategic focus by Australian governments and will be judged by independent panels across five criteria that represent value to the nation.

    “There are huge opportunities right now for Australian innovators to capitalise on a fast-evolving global technology landscape, and we want to play our role in putting a spotlight on the companies and the individuals that are making a real difference,” InnovationAus publisher Corrie McLeod said.

    “Australia has a genuine competitive advantage in a range of market areas. We have great skills, and a long track record of research excellence in new to the world knowledge,” she said.

    “This InnovationAus awards program will highlights the next steps in delivering economic and social value to Australia – commercial success; intellectual property translation; impact; non-R&D innovation; and applied technology.”

    The InnovationAus 2021 Awards for Excellence is a six-month program or articles and podcasts and video testimony to shine a spotlight on these incredible innovators and will culminate in a black-tie Commercial Disco event at the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Sydney on November 18.

    Our foundation partners for these awards includes Verizon Business Group, Sitecore, Squiz, Microsoft Australia, CSIRO, Mimecast, Agile Digital and Wrays.

    The judging criteria for the awards are:

    Commercial success

    Judges will review what commercial success looks like for your organisation, your export potential and success stories within the international marketplace. We want to see evidence of your company’s track record in creating a product or service, then effectively selling to domestic and/or international markets. This is a Commercial Disco(very)!

    Translation of intellectual property

    Intellectual property (IP) is developed in different environments and there are many strategies to successfully bring the research outputs to market. Judges will reward excellence in the translation of IP – through programs that enable successful research collaborations across various sectors as well as those companies that continue to develop IP internally.

    Impact

    What is your company’s impact on its sector? Does your product or service take Australian smarts and create new jobs and wealth for the nation, or make the lives of our citizens better? Does your innovation inspire through originality and ambition? Judges will review how entrants are aligning their success measures –such as addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals or CSIRO’s Challenge Missions.

    Non-R&D innovation

    We will also be looking for business innovations that have helped your organisation translate its IP for commercial or social impact success. Elements will include your organisation’s business strategy, a successful pivot, or its adaptability to major challenges, risk or unexpected outcomes. It will look at your leadership and human resources strategy and all the other non-R&D factors that are vital to successful growth.

    Applied technology

    Judges also want to hear stories of organisations that have adapted or pivoted research and innovation projects to build a product or service for an entirely different sector. What horizonal applications of these particular technologies have been used to solve a challenge? How are these companies themselves consumers of emerging tech that is then to create new products?

    The 11 award categories are:

    1. Advanced Manufacturing
    2. CyberSecurity
    3. Food and AgriTech
    4. MedTech and Biotechnology
    5. Mining Equipment, Technology and Ser vices (METS)
    6. Energy and Renewables
    7. Space and Remote Automation
    8. Defence Industry
    9. Research Translation
    10. People’s Choice Award
    11. Australian Hero Award

    You can find more details about these awards and the program of editorial activity that comes with them by visiting the InnovationAus Awards for Excellence website.

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  • InnovationAus 2021 Awards for Excellence

    After six years of publishing news and insights about Australia’s industry policy landscape, we are incredibly proud to launch the inaugural InnovationAus Awards for Excellence, a celebration of the people and companies changing the nation.

    In our editorial coverage, InnovationAus covers a broad horizontal innovation ecosystem, connecting readers from across the different silos of government, academia, institutional research, big business and startups.

    Our sector is ready for an awards program that celebrates not just Australia’s research excellence, but excellence in the translation of that research into commercial or social impact outcomes as well.

    It highlights Australian excellence in non-R&D innovation and the use of applied technology in building our industries of the future.awards

    The awards are a six-month program of discovery, where InnovationAus will profile our best and brightest companies through editorial profiles, podcasts and videos. Our focus is on the Australian heroes who are driving the wealth-creating innovation and long-term economic and social value for the nation.

    We are exceptionally proud to launch these awards with a set of foundation sponsors that include Verizon Business Group, Sitecore, Squiz, Microsoft Australia, CSIRO, Mimecast and Agile Digital.

    The program culminates in a black-tie awards ceremony – a true Commercial Disco – on November 18 at Sydney’s Overseas Passenger Terminal. This is a night to celebrate our successes in Australia, and to publicly recognise the people and companies behind those successes.

    We will dance the night away.

    Early-bird entries for the awards open on Friday June 4.

    “We are lucky at InnovationAus in that we come across very interesting people and companies doing incredible things who don’t always get the kind of profile they deserve. But, the reality is there are people in Australia doing amazing things that we should all be very proud of,” InnovationAus publisher Corrie McLeod said.

    “We want to put a spotlight on these Australian heroes, the people who are taking ideas and creating value – whether that is through wealth creation and high-value local jobs and expertise, or through long-term positive social impact.

    “There is incredible energy in our tech and innovation ecosystem right now and we want to harness that and help change the way that Australians think about research, IP translation and the commercial innovation,” Ms McLeod said.

    The 2021 InnovationAus Awards for Excellence have been in development for six months and relied on the advice of our Expert Advisory Panel:

    • Professor Roy Green – Chair of UTS Innovation Council, Chair of Port of Newcastle
    • Luli Adeyemo – Founder/Director Best Case Scenario
    • David Wright – Executive Chair Rozetta Technologies and Managing Director Aqua Ventures
    • Claire McFarlane – Honorary Association United States Studies Centre
    • Adrian Beer – Chief Executive, METS Ignited Industry Growth centre
    • Dianna Somerville – Chair Regional Development Australia Riverina, Founder Regional PitchFest
    • Phil Morle – Partner Main Sequence Ventures and Chair V2 Foods
    • Wilma James – Founder and Innovation Adviser Profitable Innovation

    The 2021 InnovationAus Awards for Excellence cover a set of 11 categories that reflects broad nature of our innovation ecosystems. We have sought to build our categories to align with national strategic priorities.

    The categories are:

    1. ADVANCED MANUFACTURING
    This broad category will include entries across the spectrum of other industries – from Australian designed and built satellites, to mineral processing, food products and everything in between. We hope this category also attracts successful pivots of IP during COVID-19 to meet supply chain shortages.

    2. CYBERSECURITY
    Since the launch of the first Australian Government Cybersecurity Strategy in 2016, the local cyber ecosystem has built steadily. From a handful of companies five years ago, there are now hundreds of Australian cyber companies – many based on deep-tech research in everything from cryptography to Artificial Intelligence.

    3. FOOD AND AGRITECH
    Value-added food production and AgriTech have been a focus of innovation investment in this country. This is in both food processing as well as production and range from high-tech sensor devices and farm-based robotics and automation to the at-scale production of plant-based meat and other protein products.

    4. MEDTECH AND BIOTECHNOLOGY
    The pandemic has put a huge spotlight on biotechs through the detailed mainstream discussion about vaccines and vaccine manufacturing. Australians are good at this stuff. Our research community is exceptional, and the commercialisation of that research is strong.

    5. MINING EQUIPMENT, TECHNOLOGY AND SERVICES (METS)
    The technology that supports the mining sector in Australia is highly advanced; whether it’s remote operation of highly-automated operations – including autonomous robotics – or the software systems that drive those operations. Australia has an incredible technology track record that we want to highlight.

    6. ENERGY AND RENEWABLES
    This category seeks to reward ambition and innovation in the renewable energy sector. Commercial research in this area is fast growing and holds tremendous promise for the nation. From hydrogen extraction technologies and solar cell improvements to the management software systems.

    7. SPACE AND REMOTE AUTOMATION
    The space sector was a lonely place to be in up until recently – now it is a hotbed of activity. From launch companies to companies with ambitions for global satellite constellations, the Award goes to our most ambitious entrepreneurs. We include remote automation in this category because there is so much cross-over.

    8. DEFENCE INDUSTRY
    The defence sector has been a stand-out in collaborations of partners – of researchers, private SMEs and multinational corporations, covering the full, vast array of technologies consumed by the defence community. This award seeks to highlight the best, most valuable collaborations between research and industry.

    9. TRANSLATION HERO
    Recognising an innovative product or service that has found institution-based IP, created a team around it, and successfully taken it to commercial realm. There are boundless examples here, from plant-based meat production to mineral processing, and space initiatives

    10. PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD
    Our judges select a final panel of the most ambitious and most outstanding entries to the InnovationAus Awards for Excellence – and allow our readers to vote on their choice for the most outstanding Australian innovation of the year.

    11. AUSTRALIAN HERO AWARD
    This award recognises the individual (or leaders of a company) whose ambition and drive has resulted in a game-changing innovation, and a fabulous commercial success. These are the heroes that we must celebrate in this Australian life we are creating.

    For more information, see the InnovationAus Awards for Excellence website.

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  • ‘Secret’ report backs the Industry Growth Centres

    An initial evaluation report of the six Industry Growth Centres – which has been considered in secret by the federal industry department for seven months or more – has highlighted inadequate funding and the centres’ inability to change the fortunes of the sectors in which they operate.

    The key findings of the evaluation by ACIL Allen, which have been seen by this reporter, hammer on three occasions the small scale and lack of funding of the IGCs which condemns their work as useful for the companies which receive support, but making no difference to manufacturing as a whole.

    Advanced manufacturing
    The secret’s out: Industry Growth Centres get the backing of departmental report

    According to the report:

    • “In particular, the GC’s lack the resourcing and structures to drive transformational change at a sectoral level…
    • “…The IGCI’s funding envelope is small relative to that of comparable international programs such as the UK’s Catapult program…
    • And: “…additional funding is required to help GC’s scale.”

    While the growth centres are funded to the tune of $50 million a year:

    • Each Catapult centre is envisaged to have 30 million pounds of funding annually from core funds, commercial investment and R&D funds
    • And the 71 Fraunhofer institutes receive 2.8 billion Euros of public funds annually.

    These figures also dwarf the federal government’s manufacturing modernisation initiative of $1.4 billion over four years which is the sum total of our response to the shortcomings in our industry structure highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

    The ACIL Allen report also found:

    • The growth centres have been open, change-focused, leadership-oriented, adaptable and inclusive
    • The centres have successfully leveraged government funding to raise private sector funds for the projects they support, as well as helping raise more than $200 million in equity
    • The centres have intensive networks and expertise, and responded with agility to the Covid-19 pandemic
    • And the centres have improved outcomes for the businesses they are engaged with.

    In summary: “While it is too soon to assess the magnitude of the changes that have occurred, ACIL Allen considers that the growth centres have aimed high and the magnitude of their impact is likely to be large.”

    However, remember, the impact is company-specific and not sector-wide.

    Surprisingly the ACIL Allen findings do not canvas the most telling difference between their design and that of the highly successful Catapult and Fraunhofer institutes.

    The growth centres do not have a remit of bringing industry, academia and public sector research to bear on sector issues, and are more akin to grant-dispensing bodies which give valuable, additional support.

    In fact one of the centres, MTP Connect has been tapped by health minister Hunt to administer the $150 million Medical Research Future Fund – it is the conduit for handing out grants.

    More like the European model is Australia’s highly successful Cooperative Research Centres program, and in our sector the Innovative Manufacturing CRC.

    Here is the dilemma.

    There are currently growth centres for Advanced Manufacturing, Cyber Security, Food and Agribusiness, Medtech and Pharmaceuticals, Mining Equipment, Technology and Services, and Oil, Gas and Energy Resources.

    They have been underfunded, could be better designed to encourage collaboration, yet have given their constraints been highly successful.

    The latest federal budget includes $800 million for a future growth centre or successor scheme.

    Yet we have a new industry minister – the seventh during the term of the coalition government – who has no background in industry and who is fighting for his political life, distracted by personal issues and court cases.

    We have to get the next phase of growth centres right – yet the cards seem heavily stacked against that happening.

    This story was originally published by @AuManufacturing. You can subscribe to the @AuManufacturing newsletter here.

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  • Reflections on five years at the OECD

    After an amazing and intensive five years with the team at OPSI (the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation), I’m leaving the OECD to move on to new adventures back in Australia. Before I go, and with the indulgence of my colleagues, I’d like to take this chance to reflect on some of what I’ve been lucky enough to learn. After all, a big part of innovation is learning, and while it’s very easy in these tumultuous and fast-moving times to not take the time to consider the lessons, we should always strive to do so. 

    Some milestones in the last five years 

    One of the first things that strikes me is just how fast the last five years have flown – part of that is no doubt part of getting older (where does the time go?), but I think it is also down to the fact that OPSI has been one of the most high performing and productive teams I’ve ever been part of. It has been fantastic to get to work with colleagues who are open to doing things differently, who come from different backgrounds, cultures and contexts, and who bring different experiences and disciplines to bear. It has also been a great personal pleasure to work and interact with people – not just in OPSI and the OECD more generally but across the world – who are passionate about how government can be, and should be, better. 

    Whether it be our work with the European Commission through our Horizon 2020 work, our trends work done with the UAE, or individual country projects or our events and being able to respond quickly to the crisis of last year, OPSI has been a dynamic and inspiring place to work. Some of the things I think are important to note include the following: 

    • Alongside the many reports for which the OECD is renowned, there has been the adherence by over 40 countries to the OECD Declaration on Public Sector Innovation, an important milestone in codifying and signalling the importance that public sector innovation plays and the necessity of governments not only taking it seriously, but approaching it in a systemic, deliberate and explicit manner.
    • The global community interested in informing, participating in and shaping the work of OPSI has grown in leaps and bounds. So much of what we do at OPSI relies upon the active contributions of that community, and we could not have achieved much of what we have without the willingness of practitioners, leaders and officials to share.
    • The collection of cases and the associated trends work has been so important and also one of the most enjoyable bits of working at OPSI. Seeing the great examples from around the world, meeting the people behind them and considering the implications has been a personal favourite, and I’d like to especially recognise the important work of Jamie Berryhill in making this happen. Our associated work on innovation primers has also been an enlightening process of exploring the potential implications of new approaches and technologies for government, and I want to note the great work of my colleague James Mohun in getting the Rules as Code primer to reality, something that was no easy task. 
    • The ambitious feat of GovAfterShock last year, which was an experiment for a very uncertain 2020, but also a prototype of a different way of thinking and working for the OECD. It showed us that there was the possibility of different ways of convening, of sharing and of different ways of collecting ‘data’ and gaining insight into what was happening around the world. (I’d like to give special thanks here to my colleagues Kent Aitken, Sam Nutt and especially Heather Buisman for making this wild idea become a reality in the midst of a very trying and challenging year). 
    • The last year has also been a steep but rich learning curve in online workshops, meetings and engagement with people around the world. While this has been very much a team learning effort, I would like to especially note the contribution of my colleague Angela Hanson as workshop maestro and adapting to virtual facilitation so adeptly and intelligently. 
    • I think we have also made some important strides in helping formalise and make more rigorous the thinking and guidance around public sector innovation, whether it be through our innovation determinants framework, the innovation facets model (a big nod to the excellent work, thinking and mutual challenging of Piret Tõnurist in bringing that to fruition) or the collection and curation of the Toolkit Navigator (a true example of the value of the OECD and its ability to serve as a collective platform for shared learning and knowledge, and a fantastic achievement in particular by Angela Hanson). 

    Every day brought something new, and I’d like to give a special thanks and recognition to the head of OPSI, Marco Daglio for his leadership and his openness (and sometimes great patience!) with sticking by some ideas that might have initially seemed a bit crazy or confused. While primarily a team studying, researching and advising on innovation, we have also been a team that has done innovation, and that is never an easy (or particularly comfortable) thing to lead. 

    I note these things not in order to ‘blow our own horn’ but to note some of what has been perhaps the most intellectually stimulating, challenging and rich period of my life, and to set the scene for some reflections that I hope might be of interest to others. 

    Insights, musings and reflections 

    The following is by no means exhaustive or perhaps even particularly surprising, but they are some things I will take away with me. 

    • Innovation exposes our assumptions and defaults: When you look at things differently and put forward new ideas, it can raise questions about things that previously might have been considered settled. For instance, when we were writing the primer on Rules as Code, this new way of thinking about legislation and rulemaking brought up a lot of conversations about what really are rules, what is really meant by prescriptive legislation, and how rulemaking fits into the workings of government. While these are fundamental to the public sector, a new idea brings new interpretations or new ways of looking at existing things, thereby forcing people to revisit definitions and understandings of how or where things fit. Many things can be presumed to have a shared, common and deep understanding until a new approach forces a reassessment of what core concepts might mean or what the purpose or place of routine practices might actually be. Yet this is not always easy, and many times we might prefer to not revisit things we hoped were accepted. It is important to be prepared for this, and to appreciate the resistance that might come, and accept the messiness that might follow.
    • The importance of a good origin story: Like any successful superhero franchise, the widespread adoption of an innovation so often depends upon having a good origin story. It is not enough to have a good idea, or for it to meet a need, or for it to have patronage. We live in complex, messy and crowded times, and a good idea needs to have a good story about it.[1] Any innovative idea will come up against resistance (personal challenges for the superhero), learning curves (coming to grips with superpowers, including their limits), and opposition (the supervillains… ok, that’s a bit of an unfair simile for public sector innovation but you see where I’m going with this). An idea that changes more than just isolated projects or activities is one that provides a story of hope, of inspiration and of inevitability, even when we might know in reality that such stories are messier than that. 
    • Innovation often has an uncomfortable relationship with the ‘truth’: On a related note, as anyone who has been involved in proposing or selling an innovative proposal to others knows, there is often an uncomfortable element of deceit with innovation. Whether it be lying to yourself (“It won’t take that long/be that hard/involve that many stakeholders” or “I can’t possibly see how it would need to concern x, y and z approvals or why anyone would not like this amazing idea”), not providing the whole truth to others (“Yes I’m 100% confident I’ve thought through everything”, “I’ve seen this work perfectly somewhere else”, “Trust me, it will work”) or being forced to provide certainty about things you cannot possibly be certain about (“We will meet all of the milestones on time (even though we’ve never done this before)”, “This is how much money, resources and support we will need exactly”, “This is the risk profile of this activity, there are no other risks that will happen”) … Innovation is a process of learning, discovery and uncertainty. Yet public sector, bureaucratic and accountability processes seek and reward the known, the expected and the certain. For innovation to occur, then, either someone has to be more certain (or naïve) than they should be or a decision maker has to be more tolerant and permissive than they are generally encouraged to be. An environment that encourages ‘no surprises’ but that also expects innovative activity is one that is hard to square. Until this is reconciled, innovation will involve some degree of sophistry, creativity and/or bravery. 
    • We all need to get better at talking about different styles of working: One of the greatest contributions our innovation facets model has made for me is to push me to think more about the different ways of working, of thinking, or relating and of supporting that come with different aims and goals. If you’re trying to achieve a big audacious goal (mission-oriented innovation) then it’s going to look different, and require different forms of support, leadership and resourcing, than if you’re trying to better engage with the realities of citizen needs on the ground (adaptive innovation). If you’re trying to understand and engage with weak signals about what the future might look like (anticipatory innovation) then you’re going to have trouble talking and working with people focused on working to improve upon the efficient and effective delivery of existing services with new approaches (enhancement-oriented innovation). A big part of the value of the facets model is providing a more sophisticated way about recognising and talking about different aims, and providing a schema to help people achieve richer and more constructive conversations sooner about what the shared aims are and what their achievement will entail. Yet so many of government processes and working styles still tend to favour one or two particular styles over others. We all need to get better at expanding our appreciation of the different styles if we are to work towards a more complete portfolio of activity that will better prepare us for an increasingly wild and uncertain range of futures. (And I note that the team will have something further on this later this year, so keep an eye out!.) 
    • 2020 was perhaps the most powerful illustration of why public sector innovation matters: In the innovation game it is always good to be able to point to tangible examples that resonate with peoples experience, to help make this fuzzy ambiguous concept meaningful and real. Well, the COVID-19 pandemic gave us a brutal and blatant demonstration of how and why government matters, but also why its ability to respond with novel solutions is fundamental to its effectiveness. Why does public sector innovation matter? The example of the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis gives us an answer to that. What is the risk of not building innovative capabilities? Again, COVID-19 gives us a clear answer for that. What are the limitations of relying upon crisis or forced necessity for driving innovative responses? Well, COVID-19 gives us an answer for that too. We produced a policy brief with some of the lessons and GovAfterShock was an attempt to help collectively distil some of the key insights and implications, along with many others who have been reckoning with the question of ‘what does it all mean?’ Yet humans are incredibly good at habituating. One of the biggest revelations for me from working with different countries was seeing similar levels of concern about risk despite sometimes radically different risk environments. We get used to things over time, such that a high cost to risk can become habituated to, just as a relatively low cost of risk can begin to seem high if you do not see any evidence to the contrary. We are already collectively habituating to elements of the pandemic and its potency,  as an example or as a driver or inspiration for why innovation matters, is starting to fade as well. There is a real risk that we are dependent upon crises to force the changes needed, because the lure of the status quo is so powerful.
    • Progress in public sector innovation is currently highly (overly) dependent upon luck: Unsurprisingly then, in working with different countries we have seen many ups and downs in the public sector innovation journey. While we hope and believe that the overall direction is towards a more consistent and cohesive approach to public sector innovation, that does not mean there have not been agendas or movements that have pulled back from fully engaging with innovation in different contexts. As discussed previously, there are many vanguards that set the path only for them to pull back, while serving as exemplars or pathfinders in other jurisdictions. No matter how good an innovative venture within the public sector might be, it is ultimately tied to factors beyond its control – e.g., political developments, changes in senior leadership, unexpected outcomes, stakeholder reactions, etc. – such that it is not enough to place hope or faith in individual projects. Innovation must be seen at a system-wide level, as the uncertainty of any one project is too great to rely on. This is part of why we advocate for a portfolio and a stewardship approach. If the practice of innovation is to succeed, it must be embedded – if not entrenched – such that it is not dependent on individual leaders, individual projects or the winds of fortune. If the public sector is to become proficient, sophisticated and mature in its approach to innovation then it needs to treat innovation as it would any other essential endeavour – with a strategic approach, with endemic training and associated performance expectations, with resourcing tailored to the iterative and exploratory nature of innovation projects, and with accountability mechanisms that equally balance the risks of the status quo with the risks of the promising but unknown. I think it is fair to say that we collectively still have a way to go in this regard.
    • While there are a lot of stops and starts, a bigger, more collaborative view is necessary: Until public sector innovation is treated as an embedded and entrenched practice, a collaborative cross-jurisdictional approach is crucial. If progress comes in stops and starts, with some success over there and then over there, then the overall forward momentum is dependent upon linking those parts together. It is too much to ask of people involved with innovative projects in the public sector that end up winding up for them to then safeguard and spread the resultant lessons. This is part of why I believe the work of OPSI is so important, in collecting and curating case studies and connections across jurisdictions, of distilling lessons and insights from diffuse pockets of innovation. Along with academics and others interested in cross-jurisdictional learning, this work matters in helping ensuring that the overall system learning continues, in the hope of avoiding continual reinventing and relearning.
    • Learning in the open is so very valuable: I have been in the fortunate position where I have been able to work in the open for over 10 years, with over two hundred blog posts published as a public servant. Not only has this been a personally valuable practice for helping me refine and (hopefully) improve my writing for different audiences, it has more importantly helped me share lessons from my work in real time, test new ideas and thinking, and connect with people across the globe who have lessons and capabilities that have been incredibly useful. It has also allowed me to share lessons with others and help them along in their own journeys. While it is not always easy or possible within the public sector, sharing experiences and lessons helps us all and speeds along the collective learning. OPSI has worked hard to serve as a platform for others to do so, whether it be sharing their case studies, their lessons and experiences with different toolkits and methodologies, or connecting with others to learn about emergent approaches such as anticipatory innovation governance, portfolio management or innovation trends. If you have something to share, perhaps consider doing it through OPSI.
    • Innovation is about the intersection of different forces: Once upon a time, a long time ago, when I first started getting involved with public sector innovation, I thought the thing that ultimately mattered was whether an idea was good, and/or whether it was the right answer. Over time I learned that there are many ideas, and many competing ideas of what is good, and that being ‘right’ is rarely enough. With some years of experience in navigating bureaucracy, shepherding innovative ideas through obstacle courses, and learning from so many others about their own experience with innovative projects, I am now much more appreciative of the forces involved. The metaphor I land on is that of physics and inertia. The activity of the public sector has a great deal of inertia, in that it will continue on as is until acted upon by an external force. Often that external force is politics, though that may only slightly alter the direction or affect the degree of momentum. A crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, offers a violent external force which can disrupt the inertia, causing a sudden change in acceleration or direction. And sometimes it comes down to the force of individuals – the psychic force of some combination of sheer stubbornness, determination, charisma, a new way of thinking – that can nudge, or sometimes change the inertia of the bureaucracy. Equally there are many competing forces that can act to maintain the inertia – processes, incumbent interests, resistance and friction – that either deflect the external forces or simply add such mass that the inertia is unchanged by the minor collision of a new idea, no matter how promising. While this is an imperfect metaphor in that these forces can change suddenly (a switch in political positioning for instance can change the balance of forces dramatically and instantly), it has also been a helpful one for me in thinking about the array of factors that need to be considered in thinking about the likely journey of an innovative endeavour or new idea. Others have preferred the metaphor of wayfinding, and navigating through changing winds and waters knowing that there is no perfect map. Regardless of your preferred comparison, I find these parallels helpful for thinking about innovation more systemically.
    • The most important thing is to just give it a go: Innovation is never going to be easy, but the aim of the work of OPSI and many others is to help make it less difficult. Because innovation is about learning, about doing things that have not been done before, there will always be more to learn about how to do it. Therefore it means the most important thing is to just get started, as that is the fastest way to learn and get better at it. And in today’s world there is no shortage of areas where the public sector needs to do things differently, to rethink and reassess given a continually changing context. While we should never assume what we have is broken, nor can we assume that it is still suited to a different context. So what are you waiting for? 

    A final thanks 

    There are literally hundreds of people who I have learnt from over the past five years and who taught, challenged, inspired or encouraged me during my time at OPSI. While public sector innovation is a continually challenging – sometimes daunting, sometimes amazing – field, the best part of it however is the generous spirit of sharing that I have encountered in so many countries. There are so many people out there determined to help make government be and do better. Whilst perhaps cliché, that is perhaps my greatest reflection – even when things seem hardest we are not alone in this great adventure of transforming the public sector.

    I will of course be continuing to follow the great work of my colleagues at OPSI and the rest of the OECD’s Public Governance Directorate, and I hope to contribute as I can into the future. For those who would like to keep in touch, you can find me at @CaptainInnovate, on LinkedIn or via my personal site. 

    [Originally published by the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) under a Creative Commons Attribution – ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO).]

    [1] The work of Sandford Borins is useful here – e.g. see Governing Fables: Learning from Public Sector Narratives 

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  • Seimens partners on Aust-made electric vehicle

    Siemens and Western Australian partner Murray Engineering have unveiled a new light electric vehicle (eLV) designed and built in Australia.

    The vehicle was unveiled at the Austmine 2021 conference taking place in Perth, and follows the announcement of a new underground electric charging station for mines last year.

    The eLV, along with Siemens’ underground electric charging stations, will play a role in reducing exposure to diesel fumes and protecting the health of workers at mines.

    Siemens Murray Engineering electric car
    Powering up: Australian-designed and built light electric vehicle for mines

    The announcement comes at a time when miners are looking at electric vehicles to reduce CO2 emissions and protect health through reduced exposure to diesel fumes.

    Murray Engineering has the scale and access to test the solution through its parent company the Byrnecut Group, the largest underground mining contractor in Australia.

    Byrnecut also owns one of the largest fleets of light vehicles used in mines.

    Murray Engineering employs 400 globally specialising in the maintenance, refurbishment, automation, manufacture and assembly of a wide range of mechanical and electrical equipment.

    Siemens provided its Sicharge UC high power DC charger for use in the underground charging station, which is pictured at the right of the photograph.

    Picture: Siemens/Dr Max Ong (at left), Innovation & Technology manager at Murray Engineering and Olivia Laskowski, Electric Vehicle Charging Promoter, Siemens.

    This story was originally published by @AuManufacturing. You can subscribe to its newsletter here.

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  • CSIRO boost for local hydrogen production

    It has been a big week in the development of a local green hydrogen sector with the launch of a CSIRO-led national industry mission and the unveiling of the network of hydrogen technology clusters.

    CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall says the mission aims to get hydrogen production below $2 per kilogram, a price-point that would make the fuel more affordable, and position Australia as a leader in hydrogen exports by 2030.

    The goal is the creation of a viable emissions-free fuel to generate electricity, power or heat and to develop a valuable new export industry.

    The Hydrogen Industry Mission is backed with $68 million in initial funding that will underwrite more than 100 projects over the next five years.

    Mission partners include the federal Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group, Swinburne University, the Victorian government and the Future Fuels CRC.

    Also involved is the government-funded National Energy Resources Australia (NERA) industry growth centre, and the Australian Hydrogen Council industry group. Toyota and Hyundai were announced as collaborators to the mission.

    The partners say that the Team Australia approach is essential to creating the 8,000 jobs and $11 billion-a-year in additional GDP that the partners say the industry can add.

    The Mission is focused on four key programs of work, some of which have already begun:

    • Hydrogen Knowledge Centre: to capture and promote hydrogen projects and industry developments across Australia. The first module, HyResource, was launched in September with NERA, the Future Fuels CRC and The Australian Hydrogen Council.
    • Feasibility and strategy studies to deliver trusted advice to government, industry and the community. This builds on recent hydrogen cost modelling and barrier analysis provided as part of developing the National Hydrogen Strategy.
    • Demonstration projects that validate hydrogen value chains and de-risk enabling technologies. Development is underway at a new facility in Clayton, Victoria, with Swinburne University and the Victorian Government.
    • Enabling science and technology through investment in breakthrough science, including a $20m partnership with Fortescue which focuses on the development and commercialisation of new hydrogen technologies.

    The CSIRO has been steadily pressing the case for building a hydrogen production industry based on the nation’s relatively abundant access to renewables. Adding hydrogen to its national missions strategy is the next step.

    “We think the next big opportunity, as does the Federal Government, for decarbonisation in Australia will be hydrogen fuel – as a zero-emissions energy carrier produced using renewable sources,” Dr Marshall told an industry conference earlier in the year.

    “Australia is blessed with vast energy resources, many of them renewable, but some of our biggest trading partners are not so fortunate. They are grappling with how to transition from a reliance on fossil-fuel imports to lower-emissions alternatives,” he said.

    “This is where science can unlock a seemingly impossible challenge because hydrogen could both fill the gap in our export dollars and help the world, and us, navigate the energy market transition.

    “Australia can become a renewable energy superpower through the production and export of hydrogen, but it isn’t easy to invent a new industry around an existing one.”

    Meanwhile the industry growth centre NERA has formed a network of hydrogen technology clusters across Australia, providing seed-funding with governments and industry to build the skills, capability and commercialisation opportunities.

    The Australian Hydrogen Technology Cluster that will expedite rapid development of the hydrogen supply chain and drive market activation, establishing a global identity and recognised brand for Australian hydrogen technology and expertise.

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  • Women in STEM rates a ‘national emergency’

    The low numbers of women in STEM occupations is “a national emergency”, according to the chairman of Industry Innovation and Science Australia Andrew Stevens, who is also a member of Champions of Change, a group of CEOs and company directors working to achieve gender equality.

    “We have a long way to go in STEM and many sectors of the economy are moving substantially faster,” Mr Stevens said.

    His advice is to engage those with the power within an organisation to change the processes that stand in the way of women achieving equal opportunity.

    Recruitment, promotion, and pay rise processes, along with all of the normal HR processes, need to be changed to create an equality-based environment for women.

    Paddl National Innovation Games
    STEM support for women: Andrew Stevens, Corrie McLeod and Dominique Fisher

    “We’ve got to disrupt the processes,” said Mr Stevens, speaking to InnovationAus chief executive and publisher Corrie McLeod, off the back of the Paddl Accelerator and National Innovation Games, which is sponsored by Western Sydney University.

    A focus on dramatically increasing the size of the STEM talent pool is another way to address the problem, according to Paddl co-founder and chief executive Dominique Fisher.

    “It’s time to stop framing the issue as either a male or a female problem,” Ms Fisher said. “If we as a nation don’t increase the talent pool, we can forget about a lot of our goals.”

    “If we focus on growing STEM participants, the easiest way to double the size is to actually have an inclusive view about how we’re going to engage women,” she said.

    “But, if it was just a matter of fixing a HR system or having 50 per cent of all roles that have to be filled by women, it would be easier. There seem to be deep issues in the pipeline, which literally starts in five-year-olds and goes all the way through.”

    For Ms Fisher, influencing women to take a pathway into STEM starts in school, by encouraging girls to take science or other STEM-related subjects.

    It’s ensuring they’re not put off by what their peers choose, at a time when peer influence is high, by showing how science and technology is the basis of many things. “Let’s find STEM applications, such as in beauty, sports and the things they love doing so that it’s relevant to them,” she said.

    Even at university, young women may face projects or learning situations related to topics such as vehicle engineering, they may not be familiar with that can undermine their confidence.

    “When they go to university, this is when confidence kicks in,” she said.

    Once in the workforce, the impact of women having families, whether it’s taking a significant amount of time away from the workforce or preferring to work part-time, can’t be ignored in the quest to achieve women’s equality, according to Ms Fisher.

    “How do we accommodate that in a way which isn’t just about HR processes and so on, but is actually rethinking flexibility at work,” she said.

    When it comes to the workplace, women’s under-representation creates a capability problem in STEM that is applied across the economy, according to Mr Stevens. “And, we can’t afford to turn off that proportion of our capability and talent,” he said.

    The conventional power structures effectively act to underrepresent women while over-representing men.

    “The tone of gender equality is influenced by this power balance in leadership, so that a balanced representation of women in leadership creates a totally different environment,” Mr Stevens said.

    “Whether it’s architecture, engineering, property or banking – it doesn’t matter what sector – the same dynamic applies in that representation of women in senior leadership positions creates a different outcome and helps overcomes the barriers,” he said.

    “However, today unfortunately, we don’t see that balance in very significant proportions to overcome it.”

    To achieve equality, there must be a way to create incentives for women and to engage them in a way that makes them want to walk through the door into a career in STEM and not be put off by these barriers, according to Ms Fisher.

    “But, at the moment, it’s not seen as a very attractive place for all these reasons,” she said.

    To hear more about women in STEM, tune into See What You Can Be, a series of interactive webinars championing Australia’s extraordinary female changemakers who are blazing new pathways across the STEM sector.

    InnovationAus was the media partner for the Paddl Impact Accelerator Program ‘Achieving Diversity in STEM’ and Western National Innovation Games.

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  • Covid-related chip shortage hits Carbon Revolution

    Carbon fibre composite road wheel manufacturer Carbon Revolution has taken a new hit from the Covid-19 pandemic. Last year the company suffered as vehicle assembly plants closed overseas during Covid-19 lockdowns.

    Now the knock-on effect of computer chip shortages resulting from lockdowns has hit the company’s market outlook, according to a statement.

    Carbon Revolution told investors: “One of Carbon Revolution’s customers has temporarily suspended vehicle production as a result of the impact of ongoing semi-conductor chip shortages in the automotive supply chain.

    “This directly impacts our largest wheel program currently in production.”

    The company said the customer had notified it of the suspension today, with forward orders for wheels for the vehicle now reduced by 1,800 for FY21.

    “It is currently expected that production of the vehicle will re-commence in late June.”

    Carbon Revolution said the suspension did not affect its industrialisation program which aims to ramp up production to produce an additional 75,000 wheels a year.

    In April Carbon Revolution announced it had raised $95 million from investors and begin construction of its first road wheel mega-line.

    The maker of wheels for Ferrari, Ford Mustang and Renault Megane models told investors it would begin construction of Phase 1 of its first mega-line production system.

    The company said then it had sold approximately 40,000 wheels so far, and had has secured “formal agreements to initiate detailed design and engineering relating” on four new Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) programs, with a significant amount of planned work do with electric vehicles.

    It added that a further ten unannounced programs are currently under formal agreements.

    Picture: Carbon Revolution

    This story was originally published by @AuManufacturing. You can subscribe to its newsletter here.

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  • Innovation Metrics Review, sunk without a trace

    An in-depth investigation of the way government measures outcomes in Australia’s innovation system conducted by the most senior of public sector advisors is missing in action, gathering dust somewhere, two years after it was due for publication.

    The Innovation Metrics Review was carried out jointly by the Office of the Chief Scientist and the Industry department’s Office of the Chief Economist and was due to publish in May 2019.

    It has never seen daylight in the public sphere. An Innovation Metrics Review Taskforce was created for the project but is no longer active. The review is nowhere to be seen.

    An Industry department spokesperson said this week that the report was “currently under consideration.” Two years late and there is no timetable for when the report (which cost $1 million, according to the 2018-19 federal budget) will be released, or even if its recommendations will be made public.

    Parliament House
    Rest in Peace: The Innovation Metrics Review sleeps with the fishes

    No draft report is available. And although the discussion paper that accompanied the review is available online, submissions to the taskforce are not.

    There is no indication from the department or anyone else as to why this seemingly innocuous investigation of how we measure our national innovation system is so contentious.

    It is worth recalling the genesis of the Innovation Metric Review. It is not the result of a thought bubble, but rather the lengthy and insightful work of experts.

    The thinking behind the review is not rocket science. You don’t need to be a $12,000-a-day management consultant to understand Peter Drucker’s famous axion “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”

    At a time when the federal government is dropping more than a billion dollars on its Manufacturing Modernisation Initiative, why don’t we have a modern methodology for understanding whether the money is well spent. How good is irony?

    Malcolm Turnbull’s Ideas Boom – the National Innovation and Science Agenda (NISA) – unveiled in late 2015 had measurement at its core and set out a quite methodical approach to understanding the innovation system.

    History buffs from that ancient era of six years ago will remember the NISA created a new advisory body Innovation and Science Australia.

    The ISA was originally chaired by venture capitalist Bill Ferris with then-Chief Scientist Alan Finkel as its deputy. The board included industry luminaries like then-Google chief Maile Carnegie, Atlassian’s Scott Farquhar, Seek founder Paul Bassat and AirTree’s Daniel Petre.

    The ISA’s first order of business was to conduct a 200+ page innovation, science and research system review. This was to provide the benchmark that identified all the moving parts within the innovation system.

    Next up, the ISA commissioned the keystone Australia 2030: Prosperity Through Innovation Report which was to be Australia’s strategic plan for an economy in transition.

    The 2030 strategy made 30 recommendations to governments, including a that the government improve “metrics and methodologies to fully capture innovation and to link it to economic, social and environment” (Recommendation 30).

    The government response to the ISA 2030 included support for Recommendation 30, noting that:

    “The Government supports ongoing improvements to innovation metrics and methodologies. This creates a robust evidence base that provides us with a clear picture of our performance on innovation and will help pin-point issues in the system that may be limiting our capacity to innovate. This enables the Government to design cost-effective and robust policies to best address such issues.

    “As part of the 2018–19 Budget, through its Australian Technology and Science Growth Plan – Better Data to Track Innovation in Australia initiative, the Government commits to a review of innovation metrics. The adequacy of the current innovation data collections and methodologies will be reviewed with a view to refining existing methods and developing new ways of measuring innovation performance.”

    And so the Innovation Metrics Review was conducted, led by the then-Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel and Chief Economist Dr Mark Cully. The review included consultations with 50 stakeholders prior to an issues paper being produced – and then a further public consultation and calls for submissions.

    A draft report was never published, and public submissions have not been made publicly available.

    The final report was handed to government – due in May 2019 – and has been under consideration ever since.

    What on earth could Alan Finkel and Mark Cully possibly have suggested that led to their report and recommendations being so comprehensively deep-sixed?

    Which brings us back to Peter Drucker: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Our innovation system is hardly the envy of the world. We know this because the OECD and others provide key benchmarks against our peers.

    If we are not applying modern metrics and methodologies to our innovation system, how will we ever improve it?

    Of course, the Innovation Metrics Review must be made public, because the public paid for it! Why is it gathering dust?

    You do have to wonder at the corporate memory in a portfolio like this. Christopher Pyne was Industry minister when the NISA was launched. By my calculation, it would have been Greg Hunt who was minister for the period when the innovation science and research system review was being carried out.

    But Arthur Sinodinos followed by Michaelia Cash would have been at the helm the Industry portfolio through most of the period in which the 2030 strategy report was being put together, and the early stages of the Innovation Metrics Review.

    And Karen Andrew has taken charge by the time the innovation metrics review was handed to the government (and due to be published).

    And now to the current minister, Christian Porter.

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  • ADC delivers secure Oracle cloud for govt

    The shift toward a better understanding of cybersecurity, data protection and sovereign capability has intensified as the COVID19 pandemic, subsequent digital transformation and global supply chain issues have exposed vulnerabilities in the nation’s collective ability to be economically resilient and cyber secure.

    While Australia has always been aligned with the five eyes intelligence alliance these elements have shocked us into a new understanding of what “sovereign capability” means, according to Oracle vice-president and chief technology officer Nathan Cook from the company’s National Security and Defence JAPAC & EMEA regions.

    Mr Cook says both public and private sector organisations are asking more questions about what “sovereign capability looks like for their own agency or organisation.

    “They are being asked to ensure that they are future-proofing and thinking critically about where data is based and stored. While it may not be a requirement today, it might be a requirement tomorrow.”

    data centre
    Cloud service: Australian Data Centres is now delivering Oracle cloud offerings to government

    He cited this month’s federal budget which earmarked $42.4 million to improve security arrangements to assist critical infrastructure owners to respond to cyberattacks, and also the announcement of the establishment of a new office to remove key supply chain vulnerabilities.

    Relatively new player to the public sector cloud services market, Oracle has worked with Australian Data Centres (ADC) to deploy its Oracle Dedicated Region Cloud @Customer (DRCC) capability into the Canberra region, specifically designed for the federal government.

    An Oracle DRCC is identical to Oracle’s commercial clouds, providing a zero-trust architecture, enterprise-grade, fully managed, hyperscale Cloud capability that can be deployed into specified data centres to meet a government’s sovereign hosting, management, security and regulatory needs.

    Government users will be able to access the ADC facility through the highly secure Intra-government Communications Network (ICON), as well as the services of all major telecommunication providers.

    ADC Director Rob Kelly said: “The government has mandated that certain types of data are required to be housed either by a cloud provider or directly by a data centre in a Certified Strategic Data Centre which is the top level of sovereignty in the industry.”

    ADC has invested in Oracle Dedicated Region Cloud@Customer, and will be able to offer the complete portfolio of Oracle’s public cloud services and Oracle Fusion SaaS applications, but dedicated to government clients.

    Mr Kelly said: “There are a number of current projects with some very large, all-of-government type applications looking to build proof of concepts on the public cloud. If those are successful, they will go into production in the dedicated region cloud.”

    “Customers now want choice in their cloud providers. They want to decide which application works best on which platform provided by which cloud provider and then consume that application that suits their business outcomes.”

    “ADC has an intermediation layer that enables the customer to choose any public cloud for any workload they want to run in the cloud. We automate a lot of the processes; build templates to suit the customer’s requirement, and provide a single view of consumption, budget and costs. They get one bill from us with full transparency across all their cloud services.”

    This article was produced as a partnership between InnovationAus, Oracle and Intel. If you would like to know more about Oracle Dedicated Region Cloud@Customer click here.

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  • Hydrogen tech is on the move in manufacturing

    Progress in utilising green hydrogen to power industrial process is being made rapidly, with the latest development the world’s first test with a 30 per cent hydrogen/natural gas blend steel forging processes.

    The mix was used to power furnaces at the Rho, Italian forged products plant of Forgiatura A. Vienna (pictured), part of the GIVA Group.

    The blend of methane and hydrogen is estimated to save the company 800,000 euros per year, calculated on the current purchase of certificates, and create a green market advantage for the company’s valves and actuators.

    CEO of project developer Snam, Marco Alverà said: “In the medium to long term, hydrogen is in a position to become the solution for decarbonising steelmaking as well as all hard-to-abate industrial sectors that have a fundamental role in our economy.

    Tyson Press
    Hydrogen is making its way into large scale manufacturing processes

    “This trial is a preparatory step to the gradual introduction of zero-emission hydrogen, initially blended with natural gas and then in pure form, in certain steelmaking production processes.”

    The use of the hydrogen and natural gas blend did not require any plant modifications and had no impact on the industrial burners used or on the characteristics of the final heat-treated product.

    The Italian breakthrough comes in the same week Australian cement and building materials group Adbri, committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

    In April Adbri and industrial process technology company Calix began a five-year collaboration to develop the world’s first commercial-scale, zero-emissions lime production facility.

    Calix is also involved in a major project, funded by the European Union, to construct a full demonstration plant of its Low Emissions Intensity Lime And Cement (LEILAC) technology t a HeidelbergCement plant in Germany.

    The prominence of Australian companies utilising hydrogen in critical industrial applications such as steel and cement is welcome, as are moves by companies to utilise green energy from solar and wind sources:

    • Also this week Alcoa in Australia launched a $28.2 million project to demonstrate renewable energy in process heat for alumina refining
    • Whyalla steelworks owner Liberty Steel Group is part of the global group which is working with Paul Wurth and SHS-Stahl-Saar to develop a major hydrogen-based steel works in France.
    • And BlueScope Steel is considering the future of the Port Kembla works in New South Wales, with the future steel making centred on breakthrough technologies including using hydrogen and electrolysis.

    The move to a low-carbon economy is underway in earnest, and Australian industry itself is no laggard.

    Picture: GIVA Group/1,000 tonne press

    This story was originally published by @AuManufacturing. You can subscribe to its newsletter here.

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  • Adrian Turner on building future industries

    Adrian Turner is the chief executive of Minderoo’s Wildfire and Disaster Resilience program. It should be no surprise that he has spent a lot of time developing his thinking on ‘mission methodology’ and the frameworks for solving system-level challenges.

    By definition system-level challenges have lots of moving parts and lots of different active players and partners. ‘Solving’ such challenges requires the different participants within the system to work together.

    That makes the challenges of any mission as much about structures and frameworks as it is about culture and the management of the response.

    Mr Turner, who is a former Data61 chief executive and Silicon Valley veteran, says the same thinking can be applied to industrial policy and the development of new industries that will drive the Australian economy.

    Adrian will appear with Silicon Quantum Computing director Michelle Simmons and Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott at the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce “Creating Australia’s Industries of the future” event on June 9. You can register for the Business Briefing here.

    Adrian Turner
    Adrian Turner: Creating system-level impact for maximum effect

    At Minderoo, Adrian Turner is working on a program that aims to identify and extinguish any bushfire outbreak anywhere in Australia within hours. That’s the mission. Minderoo won’t achieve this on its own, because any response involves an entire system of emergency services, communications companies, government policymakers, volunteer community groups, and big business.

    But breaking down the challenge and the component parts of the system lets you better understand that gaps. And then you can start to apply resources to the areas of specific need. But it starts with a mission.

    That can be applied to the development of new industries, because it is a system-level challenge. If you think about building a quantum industry in Australia, that’s not going to be achieved by a single company, he says.

    “We have been too focused on a linear transition from idea to research to prototype to creating a company to building a global company,” Mr Turner said. “But it’s a non-linear issue if we start at the other end and look at what are the big problems we need to solve, or the big opportunities that we need to engage.”

    He uses the challenge in the agricultural and food sector of seeking greater levels of ‘traceability’ across our supply chains. “That’s a system-level opportunity because if we can get that right, it means we will be able to command a premium – because we can assure a higher quality.”

    But to get there needs elements of policy and advocacy, new economic business models, or there could be a need to unlock value from government-held data. There might be off-the-shelf software that could be applied, or there could be gaps that need further research.

    The point is that the challenge requires that all of the parts of a system be identified – including the gaps – and then it needs to be drawn together: “That’s what unlock system-level change. But it has to start with a problem.”

    Mr Turner said there had been some good digital economy work coming out of Prime Minister and Cabinet “that clearly communicates that this is a whole of government, whole of country priority to not only digitally transform existing businesses, but also to create new industries.”

    “Quantum is a great example of that. Precision genomics and precision medicine are another. Renewable energy is another. The whole area of spatial intelligence that plays into robotics and industrial automation [or] earth observation that helps out agricultural and minerals sectors are all underpinned by digital technology in some way.”

    “That centralised management of a whole-of-government, or whole-of-economy strategy makes a lot of sense.”

    InnovationAus is a media partner for the AICC Business Briefing Creating industries of the future event. You can register for the event here.

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  • ‘Citizen-centric’ demolished by NDIS algorithms

    After more than twenty years of ‘citizen centric’ strategies by governments around the world, this week saw the demolition in Australia of any pretence of citizen-centric, participant-centric, person-centric – or any other version strategy based on ‘human’ centricity.

    The theatre of citizen-centric has now run its course. And in the year 2021, citizen-centric has been replaced by the ungoverned rise of machine-centric algorithms.

    Last week under questioning at the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS Inquiry into Independent Assessments, the NDIA revealed for the first time the architecture of the algorithms to be used in robo-planning.

    Also in evidence, commentators including myself have raised serious concerns on the application of algorithms, and the additive impact of algorithms, on people with a disability.

    NDIS NDIA
    Reduced to personas: The NDIA and its algorithms increasingly under fire

    Lacking any transparency or ethics, the broad-brush description of the algorithm architecture involves the construction by the agency of 400 personas based on disability, age and other factors.

    Would indigeneity, language, culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) people and homelessness be factors? We don’t know. The determinants of the algorithm personas have not been subject to any independent external scrutiny.

    The agency indicated that a technical paper would be released, and it is understood that the sector and academic and legal community will forensically examine it.

    But given the timeframes promulgated by the government, any feedback is likely to be too late. The assumptions and determinants will have already been baked into the algorithm – or algorithms, as there will be more than one.

    Algorithms that include debt recovery. And algorithms that include the extensive and yet to be legislated changes that the community only found out about because the draft legislation had been leaked.

    And a cautionary word about ‘personas’.

    Personas are typically the collaborative outcome of a co-design process, used to tell a story from the person’s perspective of their experience, with all the uncomfortable, confronting, and messy details of life. More controversially, they are often used in HCI design although with issues of stereotyping a major concern.

    But the apparent use of personas in the construction of the NDIS robo-planning algorithms, is a perverted application of this method.

    With the lack of transparency and ethics – and the absence of co-design – the algorithms become a construction of internal modelling where bias is inescapable.

    Not only will bias be baked in, but the operation of these powerful algorithms is not subject to independent scrutiny or appeal.

    And all this has arisen because the agency has created a seething mess of administrative and conceptual complexity that it cannot manage.

    Sliding doors of complexity so unfathomable that the scheme itself has become manifestly unjust.

    So their answer is to put over 530,000 Australians with disability into 400 persona boxes and wipe out any pretence of the notion “participant centric”.

    We could see this coming over recent years when the word “co-design” disappeared from key corporate documents. I was criticised for pointing this out.

    In reality, it matters not whether the number is 400 or 4,000 personas, as this approach treats Australians with disability as an amorphous data mass and not as individuals with rights, and with unique lives and needs.

    And it is a harbinger of things to come for those on welfare, aged care and veterans.

    Certainly data analytics is critical. And better and transparent data analytics is urgently needed.

    But the political arguments around scheme sustainability not only ignore the benefits side of the equation, but completely ignore complexity as a most significant factor impacting sustainability.

    The original 2011 Productivity Commission Report referred to complexity as “confusopoly”.

    And an overwhelming number of the more than 260 submissions to the Inquiry on Independent Assessments describe the injustice and human rights impact of complexity on all communities, especially First Nations people, CALD communities, and people with psychosocial disability.

    The Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS) Submission (number 153) for example describes the barriers of complexity, literacy and “magic words”.

    The complexity sees documents and highly personal information, lost. This is the experience of a great many people evidenced in submissions to this Senate Inquiry and other inquiries including the Tune Review.

    A recent poll on the NDIS Grassroots Facebook group (with 55,000 members), indicated as many as 80 per cent of people experience lost documents. This would be an enormous cost driver across the whole system.

    Imagine if 80 per cent of people undergoing an Independent Assessment, had their documents lost. There is no guarantee that this will not happen.

    So an end-to-end co-designed time-and-motion study would be immensely revealing. And this should be done before any structural changes to the scheme are made.

    Automation and the application of algorithms, which will be inherently biased, do not overcome complexity nor the injustice, disadvantage and cost this causes.

    To the contrary, there is international evidence that algorithms deployed by the state cause harm and compound injustice.

    So, all up, it is not clear what ‘problem’ the personas are intended to address.

    Except the effect of this is to digitally institutionalise people with disability into boxes, and to subject them to lifelong examination, study and control.

    In response to the proposed changes that have been unanimously slammed by every sector of the community, Minister Reynolds challenged: “if somebody could come up with a better option…”

    As if that challenge had not been well anticipated, in the more than 260 submissions to the Senate Inquiry into Independent Assessments.

    People with disability, experts, health professionals, NGOs, service providers, state and territory governments, advocates: thousands of hours of documented evidence and insightful thoughtful solutions and recommendations.

    Like many people, my family found the process of writing a submission detailing our harrowing experience, very painful.

    But we, and hundreds of thousands of Australians have a vested interest in the sustainability of the NDIS.

    And in stirring testimony at the Senate hearing, Mr Dougie Herd Chair of the ACT Disability Reference Group and one of the original campaigners for the NDIS, challenged back “…this is super personal.”

    It is personal and yet we have been reduced to personas, components in algorithms.

    The upending of the NDIS social contract has precipitated an insidious episode of servicing by algorithm, in which no Australian has had a say.

    Until the government publishes the design of the algorithms and intended applications, their use must stop immediately.

    Marie Johnson was the Chief Technology Architect of the Health and Human Services Access Card program; formerly Microsoft World Wide Executive Director Public Services and eGovernment; and former Head of the NDIS Technology Authority. Marie is an inaugural member of the ANU Cyber Institute Advisory Board.

    Photo credit: NoDisadvantage Community on Facebook

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  • The absurdity of our innovation theatre

    Sally-Ann Williams is chief executive of Cicada Innovations, the nation’s leading deep tech incubator, “supporting visionary entrepreneurs as they commercialise research and turn ideas into businesses.” Cicada has been doing that for 20 years.

    Bronwyn Le Grice is the CEO at ANDHealth, a commercialisation engine room for digital health, providing support programs for Australian digital health companies.

    Both of these leaders share an optimism about the future that is common across the entrepreneur community. But they have a dim view of government funding of innovation in Australia, marking parts of it as simply “innovation theatre.”

    They spelled out what they see as failures of innovation funding and offered suggestions for a different approach, in an InnovationAus Commercial Disco podcast.

    Bronwyn Le Grice Sally-Ann Williams
    Innovation theatre: Bronwyn Le Grice and Sally-Ann Williams on fynding

    Ms Le Grice says innovation achievements were assessed by inappropriate metrics, while those that reflected the real value of innovation were often ignored.

    “We all need to look beyond things like metrics of numbers of startups and others we use to measure government funding programs,” Ms Le Grice said. “Innovation in deep tech, and health technology specifically, takes time.”

    “So, when we look at supporting that innovation, we need to have a longer-term lens. It should not be about how many people attended the workshop we ran.

    “It should be more about: how many companies have gone from two to 10 to 20, to 40 employees; how many people have achieved regulatory approval for their products in global markets; how many people are partnering with major corporates,” she said.

    “Let’s start looking at the deep economic impacts of sustained innovation over a period of time. Let’s stop focusing on valuations over value, and talking about numbers of startups. Some of them might be one person, and it might be a side gig. And they may not actually ever get there.”

    ‘Deep tech’ was the focus of a report produced by Cicada Innovations, released in August 2020, Australia’s Deep Tech Opportunity.

    Ms Williams dismissed the parameters commonly used to judge innovation as “vanity metrics”. She said the report aimed to assess ‘deep tech’ innovation according to ‘impact metrics’, “numbers that, when you look at them and unpack them have much more significance to people, the planet and prosperity.”

    She said the report applied these value additive metrics. “We found that, for every dollar a deep tech company returns, there’s an extra $3 returned to customers, to business and society at large,” Ms Williams said.

    “So the actual value of the business is not what it’s valued at, or what its profit line looks at, it’s actually its cost-saving into society.”

    In a telling example she cited Cicada Innovations member, Loop+. It has developed an activity tracker for wheelchair users that continuously records the body’s seated movement and position to understand activities and risks.

    “It helps people avoid complications like pressure sores. There’s a value of that company in terms of sales and raising capital and getting traction selling locally and overseas,” Ms Williams said.

    “But treating people hospitalised with pressure sores costs the health system $2.2 billion every year.

    “Where is that metric when we’re thinking about what we’re investing in, and what kind of programs we’re standing up? When we think about value, we have to redefine it.”

    Ms Le Grice dismissed the government’s current innovation funding policy as having forgotten that innovation should be about sustained long-erm economic growth and international competitiveness.

    “They should be funding programs with a proven track record of delivering impact. Like investors and entrepreneurs look for people who have done it before, government should be looking for people with a track record, and then say, ‘how do we take the skills and expertise in those people, like Cicada with a 20 years history of building amazing companies and deploy that model across multiple sectors?’”

    Ms Williams said the government’s approach to funding innovation lacked long-term vision unlike most other developed nations.

    “We need real vision about what we can be and what we should be as a society and really line up behind it, recognise it is where we want to go. But to get there is going to take sustained investment and sustained vision.

    “Every other developed country has doubled down on science and technology and engineering-based businesses and investments in research,” Ms Williams said.

    “Their multinationals and companies operating in the UK, in the EU, in the US are investing in research, development and in long term vision, because they know they need it for economic sustainability,. We are still so far behind on those things.”

    Ms Le Grice proposed a solution: restructuring the co-operative research centre program that has been running for 20 years into a co-operative commercialisation centre program, modelled on ANDHealth.

    “Why don’t we talk about cooperative commercialisation centres? We have a model for cooperative research that is proven. It brings together global corporates with universities, with smaller Australian service providers with large Australian players. We’ve got big to small companies wrapping themselves around digital health commercialisation.

    “There is absolutely no reason why I can’t sit down with a team from a different sector and teach them how to create a non-profit, industry growth driven, cooperative commercialisation centre in their area of expertise.

    “We’re still funding the same structure. If we want to change it, fund it differently. It’s really simple. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different outcomes.”

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  • Expert advice in policy: On pandemics and climate

    The Morrison Government has made a hallmark of relying on expert medical advice in its Covid-19 response. What are the appropriate limits to reliance on expert advice in policymaking?

    On 18 March 2020, the Governor-General declared that a human biosecurity emergency exists. He did so on the advice of Health Minister Greg Hunt under the Biosecurity Act 2015.

    An emergency declaration can only be made in relation to a ‘listed disease’ and the only person who can list a disease is the Director of Human Biosecurity who is the Chief Medical Officer. Most of the powers under the Biosecurity Act work in this way, the decisions are made by the experts appointed to the role, not by ministers.

    Throughout the pandemic, we have become used to our leaders stating that every restriction is based on the ‘medical advice.’

    climate response factory
    What a gas: Expert advice, but only when it fits the prevailing world view

    Not everyone is as supportive of the reliance on expert advice. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott writing in The Australian said:

    “We are materially rich but spiritually poor, and generally more fearful. More self-confident governments would not have placed so much faith in unelected and unaccountable experts. The experts would not have so readily changed their minds about the need for mandatory shutdowns. Societies that retained more ‘faith in the world to com’ would have been less alarmed by a virus-like those that have readily been seen off before.”

    While he was sceptical about some of the health measures put in place, he was more scathing of the budgetary measures. For Abbott it was a question of getting ‘the balance right between keeping people safe and keeping people free.’

    Not all former Prime Ministers agreed, especially in relation to budget measures. Speaking on the ABC’s Insiders in April 2020 Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said:

    “Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and John Howard, who has seen everything in politics, said to me, and he’s spoken to the Prime Minister – said there is no ideological constraints at times like this. That is the advice we have taken.”

    Prime Minister Scott Morrison four days earlier had said “So make no mistake, today is not about ideologies. We checked those at the door.” The whole address on that occasion framed our COVID-19 response in terms of exercising ‘national sovereignty.’

    It seems that three people, all of whom have been Australian Treasurer and two Prime Minister, that it is alright to ignore the expert economic advice on the value of Keynesian demand management to favour ideology so long as you aren’t in a crisis.

    That brings us to the question of climate policy. In the long-run climate change from carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases pose a more devastating risk for the people on this planet than the virus.

    There are a vast array of experts advising that, just as Australia has done with its virus response, the climate risk can be largely averted by acting to reduce the risk (by reducing emissions).

    But the Prime Minister doesn’t configure his response to the risk of climate change based on expert advice.

    Most recently his government announced it will underwrite its Government-owned Enterprise Snowy-Hydro to build a new gas-fired generator at Kurri Kurri. The government is proceeding on its own assumption of the need for an additional 1000MW of ‘dispatchable’ capacity despite, as the AFR reports,  the Australian Energy Market Operator (the experts) stating that between 153MW and 200MW were needed.

    Energy Security Board chair Kerry Schott said a taxpayer-funded gas-fired power plant in the Hunter Valley makes little commercial sense given the abundance of cheaper alternatives flooding the market.

    It has been claimed in press reports that the government’s announcement “coincided with the International Energy Agency (IEA) warning…that development of new oil and gas fields and coal-fired power plants needed to stop this year” if a net-zero by 2050 strategy was to be achieved.

    The IEA report did make the statement about new oil and gas fields, but didn’t state that the scenario required no new coal generators, only that the scenario required no new fossil-fuel resources to be developed. The relevant section reads:

    “Coal‐fired power plants should be phased out completely by 2040 unless retrofitted, starting with the least‐efficient designs by 2030 (Figure 3.13). This would require shutting 870 GW of existing subcritical coal capacity globally (11 per cent of all power capacity) and international collaboration to facilitate substitutes. By 2040, all large‐scale oil‐fired power plants should be phased out. Natural gas‐fired generation remains an important part of electricity supply through to 2050, but strong government support will be needed to ensure that [Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage] is deployed soon and on a large scale.”

    The problem for the government’s investment is that Australia doesn’t have enough gas, allowing for the need to fill export facilities, for more use of gas. The EIS even stated that if the plant is required in the first six months it will have to operate on diesel.

    Ignoring the science of climate change, the government strategy ignores the science of economics. The need for the gas plant only exists until the additional pumped-hydro storage from Snowy Hydro is available to the market in 2025.

    The question is how a rational investor in both facilities would bid into the market. The short answer is that wherever they thought their resources are required in the market they would bid both resources at the cost of the gas generator and obtain that price for both facilities.

    In short, the government strategy doesn’t increase competition, it increases the market power of the government-owned generator.

    While the government doesn’t respect expert advice on energy policy and climate change avoidance, it does respect the scientific community on the impact of climate change.

    The 2021-22 Budget included the creation of the Australian Climate Service. This service (a partnership, made up of world-leading science, information and expertise from the Bureau of Meteorology, Geoscience Australia, CSIRO and Australian Bureau of Statistics) helps its customers to better understand the threats posed by a changing climate and natural hazards, to limit the impacts now and in the future.

    As the saying goes, this is a government that wants to invest in putting an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff rather than a fence at the top.

    A delineating feature between the COVID response and climate action is the question of ‘national sovereignty.’

    The Morrison government has a particularly robust version of nationalism that has pervaded other policy areas, including border security and our relations with other nations including but not limited to China (for example, the insistence on exporting criminals to New Zealand is another).

    But this is just another form of ideology. The expert advice on climate action is set aside against a blather of talk about not trashing Australia’s economy for climate action and using ‘technology not taxes.’

    But here’s the rub. The Morrison government would have you believe they can’t set a net-zero emissions by 2050 policy without a technology roadmap, but that is exactly what is provided by the aforementioned IEA report Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector.

    The limitation for Morrison isn’t the choice between technology and taxation, it is that he only accepts expert advice that fits with his robust nationalist ideology. No wonder it is hard to attract students to STEM subjects – why be an expert when it plays second fiddle to ideology?

    Footnote: In June 2018 at the launch of a volume of speeches titled Howard: The Art of Persuasion, Menzies Research Director Nick Cater observed ‘Liberalism, as Mr Howard points out in this book in so many places, is not an ideology, it’s a practical philosophy; it’s about doing.’

    If this is true, then the question remains what ideological constraint it was that Howard advised Morrison and Frydenberg to set aside.

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  • Whitsunday launch pad for space sector

    Queensland could soon add a rocket range to the list of tourist attractions in the iconic Whitsunday region with Gilmour Space Technologies getting state government support for a launch facility at Abbot Point.

    Queensland deputy premier and Minister for State Development Steven Miles said the government was committed to the development of a launch infrastructure in the state and has given Gilmour Space the green light to proceed with its development application for a small rocket launch pad at the Abbot Point State Development Area.

    The announcement follows a technical and environmental investigation into the potential of Abbot Point as a suitable location for small-scale launch vehicles had come back positive and Gilmour Space had expressed an interest in the site, Mr Miles said.

    Queensland had a number of home-grown advantages as a central location for the Australian space industry and the state is investigating a strategy that would include multiple launch facilities.

    whitsunday Gilmour Space
    Whitsunday looms: Gilmour Space gets state government backing for a launch facility

    “Growing our space industry in Queensland will add billions to the economy and create thousands of local jobs. That’s why we are committed the development of launch infrastructure,” Mr Miles said.

    “Our easterly facing position, proximity to the equator, and our leading launch and propulsion companies make Queensland the perfect place to invest in space,” he said.

    The state’s strategic defence advisor for aerospace, former Air Vice-Marshal Neil Hart, said launch facilities were one of the foundational elements of developing a true sovereign capability.

    “There is considerable interest in leveraging the geographic advantage of an East coast launch from low latitudes,” Mr Hart said.

    “Identifying a site along the Queensland coast with the potential to launch multiple and large payloads to a range of nationally significant orbits would be a significant contribution to Australia’s growing space capabilities.”

    Gilmour Space co-founder and head of launch operations James Gilmour said the Abbot Point site would give the company’s customers access to “a range of valuable orbits, inclinations, and altitudes that they will require.”

    The company is also exploring a proposed launch site in South Australia for complementary polar orbits, in line with Gilmour’s ‘All Orbits, All Planets’ corporate vision for Gilmour Space.

    The deputy premier said in addition to this ongoing work, the next actions of our strategy will be underway, including working with the space industry to support the development of a rocket engine test site and an Earth observation data analytics hub.

    “These projects align with Queensland’s strengths, will boost our economic recovery and will help ensure the growth of our space industry is all systems go,” Mr Miles said.

    For Whitsunday Regional Council Mayor Andrew Willcox, developing a launch site at Abbott Point would deliver a huge economic boost for the region and create hundreds of permanent job opportunities for Bowen and Whitsunday residents.

    “For too long Bowen has been the next “boom town” in north Queensland so adding a space launch site to our expanding agriculture, mining and tourism sectors will be a game-changer for our region.

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  • NSW launches cyber strategy to fill industry gaps

    One year after the flagship NSW Government delivery site at Service NSW was breached, the state has unveiled a cybersecurity strategy that puts industry development and capability-building in cyber at the centre of government tech policy.

    The sector-wide cybersecurity strategy is an acknowledgment of the importance of bringing together industry policy in relation to cyber with government resilience in relation to cyber.

    The thinking is that a focus on building a strong local cyber industry inevitably leads to improved cyber skills, cyber capability and ultimately the resiliency of cyber infrastructure – including in government.

    The strategy is focused on four key commitment including improved state government cyber resilience, industry assistance to help NSW cyber businesses to grow, uplifting the cyber security workforce and skills, and supporting cyber research and innovation.

    Sydney traffic busy lights
    Bright lights, cyber city: NSW has unveiled an industry-centric cyber strategy

    NSW Digital Minister Victor Dominello claimed NSW was already leading the nation in the cybersecurity sector. Improving cyber resilience across the economy required the involvement of all sectors – citizens, businesses, government, and researchers. But government needed to lead.

    “Increasing overall cybersecurity resilience is about ensuring the safety and security of citizens and communities online. Government is absolutely pivotal to this as part of its overall responsibility to protect its citizens,” Mr Dominello said.

    “In a post COVID-19 environment, we need to adapt our way of living and working to embrace the digital future,” he said.

    “Our post COVID-19 ‘new normal’ will bring incredible opportunities as we adapt to greater reliance on connectivity, remote working and importance of data.

    “It is important that the NSW Government maximizes the state’s existing capabilities and develops the local cybersecurity industry into a globally competitive, innovative ecosystem that drives economic growth.”

    The NSW government has spent the last year working through its cybersecurity structures following a breach at Service NSW.

    A parliamentary inquiry into the breach released earlier this year recommended an overhaul of cyber practices – including the strengthening of the mandate and resources of Cybersecurity NSW, and moving the agency from the Department of Customer Service to Premier and Cabinet.

    NSW is also set to become the first Australian state or territory to introduce a mandatory data breach notification scheme, following a serious cyber incident last year.

    But it is the recognition of the direct link between the strength of the local cyber industry and overall cyber resilience across the economy – including government – that is most interesting about this strategy. And the industry development initiatives recognise that link.

    NSW Jobs and Investment Minister Stuart Ayres said the state would partner with the cyber sector to grow the local industry, leverage academic strengths, and to drive international competitiveness.

    “Under this strategy, Investment NSW will establish a NSW Cyber Hub, delivering a range of initiatives to accelerate the growth of NSW cyber businesses, maintain and attract the right talent to create the fluid, dynamic workforce needed to address skills gaps,” Mr Ayres said.

    “NSW already has an incredible depth of talent however we need to continue to foster, cultivate and grow this pipeline to ensure our industry thrives. This strategy builds on our strengths whilst seeking to grow new ones and will help the NSW digital economy thrive.”

    “The export opportunities for cybersecurity industry is enormous. From Bondi to Broken Hill, cybersecurity businesses can export to any location around the world from any city or town in NSW.”

    The public consultation and industry engagement finished in late 2020. The new strategy replaces the existing NSW Cyber Security Strategy and the NSW Cyber Industry Development Strategy, combining both into one overarching cyber security strategy.

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  • Govt looks in the mirror with a policy reheat

    When Industry Minister Christian Porter rose in question time to mock the Opposition for “reheating” a policy from six years ago, it’s unclear whether he knew the government had done exactly the same thing just days earlier.

    Yes, Labor had ‘re-adopted’ an innovation-focused policy it announced in late 2015 and took to the federal election the following year.

    Whether the Opposition having the same policy five years ago when it was also the Opposition is an issue at all is also very much up for debate. But it’s also a fact that in last week’s budget the government re-adopted an innovation-focused policy that it announced in late 2015 but failed to pass into law.

    Hours after Labor leader Anthony Albanese and Industry spokesman Ed Husic unveiled plans for a ‘Startup Year’, where graduates would be able to access HELP loans to participate in business accelerator programs, it emerged in the media that this was the same policy that Labor took to the 2016 election.

    Parliament house Canberra
    Policy balloon: There’s a pot calling the kettle black in Canberra

    This wasn’t exactly a secret, with a press release from Opposition Leader at the time Bill Shorten easily found with a quick Google search.

    But the government quickly jumped on this revelation, with Mr Porter in Parliament branding the reuse of the policy as demonstrating a “lack of innovation”.

    His criticism focused on the fact the Opposition had used the same name for its same policy.

    “They weren’t even innovative enough in a six-year period to come up with a new name for an old policy. Literally, the best that the Leader of the Opposition can do in the space of innovation is to plagiarise a six-year-old idea of his predecessor,” Mr Porter said.

    The government’s attacks were nothing more than a hypocritical attempt at points scoring that dodged any real discussion of policy and efforts to improve Australia’s innovation output.

    The government’s critiques failed to mention that Mr Husic was also instrumental in the development of the “Startup Year” policy in 2015 as a shadow Innovation minister. And it’s a hard argument to make that a party can steal its own policy that it has been unable to implement because it has not won government in the time since.

    Mr Porter also neglected to mention that the government had also reheated its own policy from more than five years ago in the federal budget.

    Included in then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s National Innovation and Science Agenda was a policy that would allow for the self-assessment of the depreciation of intangible assets, something which the government said would foster innovation in Australian businesses and encourage the adoption of new technologies.

    But the Coalition was unable to get the policy past Parliament and eventually dropped it in 2018.

    More than five years after first announcing the policy, the Coalition ‘unveiled’ it again as part of the $1.2 billion Digital Economy Strategy in last week’s budget. The policy is exactly the same as the one promoted by the former Turnbull Government.

    While Labor’s policy didn’t see the light of day because the party lost the election in the following year, the Coalition were unable to pass its reforms and eventually dumped them in 2018, claiming savings of more than $400 million.

    While it’s not inherently bad for either party to return to their previous policies, it’s disingenuous and hypocritical of the government to be going on the attack against Labor for doing this when it did the very same thing just days earlier.

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