Sensing Industry Connect comes to the Sydney Knowledge Hub
The popular NSSN Sensing Industry Connect series returned to Sydney in August, engaging audiences at the Sydney Knowledge Hub at the University of Sydney.
After holding a busy event at Charles Sturt University in Albury in June, the NSSN was back in Sydney to welcome the diverse smart sensing community over informal drinks and networking.
The popularity of the NSSN Sensing Industry Connect series is maintained through the energy of leaders and entrepreneurs from across industry, government and research to share their insights and ideas. Together they form a community of innovators in smart sensing across NSW and the ACT.
Co-Director of the NSSN, Professor Ben Eggleton, attended the event and highlighted the NSSN’s evolving story.
“NSSN is now in year seven of its story, and it’s fascinating to reflect on the network and where we have been and where we are now going.
When we started at the NSSN, some of the greatest challenges we faced were focused on air quality; now we have even more significant challenges in Australia, but we are ready to face them.
NSSN is now a consortium of nine of Australia’s leading universities; we’re a broker, a facilitator, and, importantly, an activator. Our prime objective is to translate world-class research into innovative solutions that generate economic benefit and value for NSW and beyond.
This event is the perfect opportunity to bring thought leaders together from industry and the university so we can meet and share ideas.”
Jane Cockburn, Program Manager for the Sydney Knowledge Hub, spoke about the importance of facilitating and supporting researchers who are considering commercialising their work.
“We’re always really excited to have groups like the NSSN here at the Sydney Knowledge Hub at the University of Sydney.
We are an incubator for research-led startups and facilitate collaboration between academia and industry.
We focus across three major areas: we are a co-working space used by our co-founders, we run events, and we run programs across the university to help researchers build their network and knowledge.”
Lewis Collins, Chief Executive Officer of Bioscout, also spoke at the event. Bioscout utilises state-of-the-art technology to detect and prevent airborne diseases that help to allow for proactive disease management on farms worldwide. They have now expanded their operations from Australia, to Canada and New Zealand.
Dr Collins spoke about the journey that BioScout has embarked on, from an idea between friends after their studies at the University of Sydney to a business that is growing across the world.
“It’s great to be here at the Sensing Industry Connect. BioScout has had quite a history at the University of Sydney. I started teaching the third-year Maths in this very room at the Sydney Knowledge Hub, so things have come full circle. Bioscout started during my PhD; my mates and I started the company out of a pub with an idea of how to help farmers.
It’s been a journey, and we now have 22 employees. We’re just expanding to Canada and New Zealand. Farmers lose £80 bn to fungal disease every year, and this is getting worse with climate change. They are spending £24bn a year on fungicides. We want to help change that with smart detection using sensors.
We have 70 disease sensors deployed currently across 15 customers, and by the end of the year, we hope to have 150 disease sensors. I’ve just come back from Canada, and it’s brilliant to see investment in Australian agtech.
We’re on a mission to use sensors to answer difficult questions. We’re so grateful for places like the Knowledge Hub to have that level of support. Finding those support networks has been essential to our success, and I would urge anyone seeking to commercialise their research to do the same. It is a long journey, and you need to look for the right support network to help you along the way."
The next NSSN Sensing Industry Connect event will take place on Monday 20 November at UTS. Further information is here.