Campus Review Volume 28 - Issue 1 | January 2018 | Seite 23

VC’s corner
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Knowing that startups usually need a leg-up financially,
in 2014 we put up the funds, in concert with the state
government, to help students translate their ideas into business
opportunities. Venture Catalyst now provides $50,000 each
to students with great ideas, and since 2014 nine startup
companies have been funded.
The Venture Catalyst businesses include everything
from a tenancy management software tool to cloud-based
machine-learning technology for a wide range of industry sectors,
including mining, manufacturing, defence and law. A premium
tonic manufacturer and a micro gas turbine have all won a head
start through the scheme.
One of the startups, Jemsoft, which gained international
attention for cutting-edge software that mitigates the risk of armed
holdup in high-risk retail environments, was bought out last year by
a publicly listed South Australian company for $900,000.
And proving that full circles are not unknown in national
economies, Australia’s position as the world’s largest producer of
super and ultra-fine wool, but one of the smallest manufacturers
of that wool, has been given a boost by Maatsuyker, a luxury wool
men’s apparel brand. Born from an idea conceived at a UniSA MBA,
Maatsuyker is innovating the apparel manufacturing process to
create high quality men’s clothing in Australia.
GETTING OFF THE BEATEN PATH
To capture a spirit of enterprise and to be useful in a small
but evolving economy, universities need to step out of the
traditional path.
At UniSA we have harnessed key high potential fields of research
in our Future Industries Institute (FII), and its very operation is
designed to engage with industry – to have the relationships and
the conversations that ensure that what we research will support
the growth of new industries, the transformation of older ones and
the development of new technology.
The research they are doing has picked up some impressive
awards. Last year, the world’s first lightweight plastic automotive
mirror, which was designed as a highly reflective, distortion-free
and shatterproof alternative to glass-based external car mirrors,
won both the Clunies Ross Award and the prime minister’s
inaugural Prize for New Innovators. The same plastic mirror
technology is now being used in partnership with an industry
partner that used to service the car industry, to develop a heliostat
surface used in the next generation of solar technology.
FII has also developed an improved system for cancer
detection that relies on magnetic rather than radioactive
tracers. The new technology is an ultrasensitive magnetometer
probe designed to be about the size of a ballpoint pen and is
capable of delivering magnetic fields up to three times that of
other magnetic tracers to deliver a much more accurate and
affordable system for the staging of deep or complex cancers.
It has resulted in a new company, Ferranova, which will take the
innovations and develop them into a system that benefits both
clinicians and cancer patients.
Another company, Myriota, which is an internet-of-things
company (IoT), was born out of advanced technologies developed
at UniSA’s Institute for Telecommunications Research (ITR).
Using low earth orbiting satellites, Myriota is revolutionising
IoT communications, with its low cost, long battery life satellite
solutions across a wide range of industries from defence
to agriculture. Just a few months ago Myriota took out the
New Business Award at the South Australian Telstra Business Awards.
As an aside, a couple of years back ITR’s Global Sensor Network
(GSN) was voted Technology of the Year 2013 by the Wireless
Innovation Forum for their system that enables cost-effective,
remote data gathering and bidirectional communication from
very large numbers of sensors. They beat an entry from NASA
which was nominated for a communication system developed
for the International Space Station.
Cohda Wireless, which was spun out of UniSA’s ITR, has become
one of South Australia’s most impressive success stories, creating
products now used in more than 60 per cent of connected car
field trials worldwide. Its new V2X (or vehicle-to-everything) radar
system allows driverless cars to ‘see’ their surroundings and to
safely operate in rain, snow or fog. They can even see around
corners. Cohda is now a major player in the driverless car industry,
with its systems and services used by General Motors, Toyota,
Volkswagen, Audi and BMW.
DEVELOPING NEW INDUSTRIES
Universities are playing a major role in helping to develop new
industries in Australia. Besides innovation in our research, the
higher education sector contributes billions to the Australian
economy both directly and indirectly. In 2013, that figure amounted
to almost $20 billion – equal to a little more th