championingthe game changers

The world’s population is at seven billion, and growing fast. By 2050, there’ll be around two billion more people on the planet and our demand for energy is likely to have doubled since 2000. Only innovative technology and unconventional thinking can help us meet our future needs. That’s why, at Shell, we’re proud to supportThe Australian Innovation Challenge; why we’re investing in the world’s biggest fl oating production facility; and why we’re encouraging the brightest young minds across the globe to think about our energy challenges. Let’s start shaping tomorrow today.

LET’S HEAR IT FORTHE INNOVATORS.

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Clive Mathiesoneditor, the australian

The Australian Innovation Challenge has once again showcased what an inventive

nation this is. Now in its second year, the challenge continues to grow stronger, attracting hundreds of high-calibre entries from all corners of the country.

Last year’s winners, including Mark Kendall’s nanopatches, are making great strides towards realising their commercial potential, and we hope to set this year’s winners on that same path.

Innovation is a key, and often overlooked, ingredient of the productivity puzzle. And unlocking that puzzle is vital to the nation’s future prosperity. As such, support for research and development has never been more important, nor more uncertain, given the financial challenges faced by governments. That’s why projects such as The Australian Innovation Challenge are vital to raising awareness of the extraordinary work being carried out by the small army of innovators across the country.

Once again, I would like to express our enormous gratitude to Terry Cutler, our indefatigable chairman of judges, and Cheryl Jones for the incredible work they have put in for several months. Thank you also to our esteemed judges, whose enthusiasm for the challenge is infectious and who voluntarily give up their valuable time in the interests of fostering innovation.

We’re grateful for the continued support of our commercial partner, Shell Australia, a company that believes in innovation and recognises its importance to the nation. And we thank Industry and Innovation Minister Greg Combet and his department for their ongoing support of the challenge.

The final word should go to the hundreds of Australians in laboratories and backyard sheds who have taken up the challenge. Your often uncelebrated work should be an inspiration to all Australians. We are proud to bring it to the nation’s attention through The AustralianInnovation Challenge.

CONTENTS the australian innovation ChallenGe

the hon GreG CoMbetMinister for industry and innovation

From communications to energy, health care and beyond, The Australian Innovation

Challenge has shone a spotlight on the creative and innovative work being undertaken in Australia.

The fantastic entries are a snapshot of what is happening across all sectors of the economy in businesses of all sizes. In 2010-11, Australia’s gross expenditure on research and development reached, for the first time, more than $30 billion. Business investment in R&D rose more than

7 per cent from the previous financial year. These businesses are investing in their future – and

the Australian Government is doing more than ever before to support it. Through programs like the new R&D tax incentive we are offsetting some of the costs so that more businesses do R&D and innovate.

And to make sure innovative ideas are not lost, Enterprise Connect offers comprehensive advice and support to help small and medium businesses transform and reach their full potential.

The coming years hold tremendous opportunity for innovative Australian businesses. We have the

potential to lead the world with new products, processes and services.

For businesses and for Australia as a nation, innovation is the key to transforming this potential into reality.

I congratulate the winners and all those who participated in The AustralianInnovation Challenge for their creativity and hard work.

The coming years hold TremendousopporTuniTyfor innovaTiveausTralianbusinesses

EDITOR Deb Richards PROJECT EDITOR Cheryl Jones CHIEF SUB-EDITOR Ley Butterworth ART DIRECTOR Sam Yates COMMERCIAL EDITOR Clara Pirani PROJECT MANAGER Lisa Panarello COVER Veena Sahajwalla PHOTOGRAPHY Dan Himbrechts

PRINTED BY WEBSTAR, 38 DERBY ST., SILVERWATER 2128, FOR THE PROPRIETOR AND PUBLISHER, NATIONWIDE NEWS PTY LIMITED (ACN 008 438 828), OF 2 HOLT STREET, SURRY HILLS, NSW 2010, FOR INSERTION IN THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN ON DECEMBER 15, 2012.

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OVERALL WINNERVeena Sahajwalla

MINERALS & ENERGYAli Baghaei

ICTChristopher Drake

ENVIRONMENT, AGRICULTURE & FOODGrant Douglas

HEALTHColin Sullivan

EDUCATIONShelley Peers

COMMUNITY SERVICESJeffrey Tobias

BACKYARD INNOVATIONFrank Will

THE RED CARPET CHALLENGEBy Doron Ben-Meir

2011 WINNERS’ UPDATENanopatch; Indigo logistics software

The world is changing at a faster pace than at any time in our history. More people

throughout the world are improving their lives thanks to the energy they can now access. In 2050, it is predicted the world will be home to 9 billion people, 2 billion more than today. As a result, global energy demand will continue to rise.

To meet this demand, the global energy system needs to undergo a radical transition. It has to become broader, cleaner and more efficient.

This will take a focused effort, sustained investment and collaboration. But to shift the transition into overdrive, we will need to harness the power of innovation, the capacity for doing things differently and better than before.

We at Shell wholeheartedly accept the innovation challenge. We’re working closely with our customers and partners

to apply technology and creative thinking to push the boundaries of what is safely achievable.

But we are also asking our communities what innovative ideas they have, inviting and even creating opportunities to work in partnership with anyone who can help us do what we do better. We think broadening the dialogue is part of our role, so we are pleased for the second year running to sponsor The Australian Innovation Challenge. These innovative thinkers might just be able to help us build a better future. Congratulations to all the finalists.

ann PiCKardCountry Chair, shell australia

hundreds ofausTraliansin labs andbackyardsheds haveTaken up Thechallenge

TheseinnovaTiveThinkersmighT beable To helpus build abeTTerfuTure

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and this in turn is predicated on the value of what we produce. So competitiveness driven by productivity, and productivity fuelled by innovation, is a basic equation for national wellbeing.

The entries in this year’s challenge exemplify the recipe for success – the imagination to see how things could be different and the capability and skill to respond to challenges rather than resigning ourselves to things as they are. There is, therefore, something positively hopeful and optimistic in the innovation stories highlighted in these awards.

Why is innovation important? We don’t innovate just for the sake of it. Innovation is important

to all of us simply because whether we innovate, or how we go about innovating, determines our standard of living and our quality of life.

The robustness and resilience of our national economy, our collective national “household”, depends on our competitiveness in all areas of activity,

terry CutlerChairMan of the judGinG Panel

THE AUSTRALIAN INNOVATION CHALLENGEOVERALL WINNER

To most, old tyres and plastic drink bottles are a burden on the planet. To University of NSW professor Veena Sahajwalla, they are a resource that should be respected and valued. Sahajwalla has devised technology to transform waste rubber and plastic into a raw material in electric arc

furnace steelmaking in mini-mills. The process delivers environmental and productivity dividends: the waste is diverted from landfill and consumed in the furnaces, while steelmaking efficiency is boosted.

Sahajwalla has won the manufacturing and hi-tech design category prize and the overall prize in the 2012 The Australian Innovation Challenge awards for the polymer injection technology, taking out $30,000 in prize money.

Sahajwalla, who was a judge on ABC TV’s The New Inventors and a member of the judging panel of the Innovation Challenge last year, was educated in metallurgical and materials engineering in India and Canada. Later, she did her PhD at the University of Michigan, focusing on iron making.

She turned her attention to electric arc furnace steelmaking. In both traditional and electric arc furnace steelmaking, iron is alloyed with other elements to form steel. But in traditional steelmaking, the source of the metal is iron ore. In electric arc furnace steelmaking the source is scrap steel, which is heated by arcs from electrodes to make it melt. Sahajwalla was fascinated by the violent chemical reactions in the mini-mill furnaces, where temperatures reach 1600°C.

Coke is injected into the furnaces as a source of carbon to act as a reducing agent. It converts iron oxide – produced through the oxidation of the scrap metal – to iron. The reduction reactions occur in the slag layer in the furnaces. Sahajwalla wanted to find out whether rubber and plastics, which are carbon-based compounds, could do the same job as coke.

There were big questions that could be answered only with experiments. Her group at the Sustainable Materials

in four years, onesteel has diverted more than 1.4 million tyres fromlandfill and cut power consumptionby millions of kilowatt hours a year.instead of a waste product, rubberhas become a “valuable raw materialfor a completely different sector”

FINALISTS

Mark Bowen Upgrade of receiver system of CSIRO’s Narrabri radio telescopeLaihua Wang CASTvac – vacuum valve for die-castingRay Malpress Variable length connecting rod – to boost fuel economy in carsPaul Gray Cohda Wireless collision avoidance system for cars

mANUfACTURINg & hI-TeCh deSIgN

Research and Technology Centre at the University of NSW and its industry partner, OneSteel, won Australian Research Council funding to find the answers.

The lab experiments were spectacular. “I almost fell off my chair,” she says, recounting some of the first images from a camera recording the reactions through the quartz window of a laboratory furnace. The rubber and plastics delivered the carbon needed to reduce the iron oxide. But they also enhanced slag foaming – the formation of bubbles in the slag which increase the energy efficiency of steelmaking.

The team had to do analytical work to get a handle on the chemical reactions and kinetics of the process. It had to run trials in OneSteel’s furnaces before the company was ready to begin commercial production of green steel by the polymer injection technology. The theory was solid and the trials went better than expected. OneSteel (now known as Arrium) has been using the technology in its plants in Sydney and Laverton, near Melbourne, for four years. By July this year it had diverted more than 1.4 million tyres from landfill in Australia and cut power consumption by millions of kilowatt hours a year.

Sahajwalla wants to see a change in attitude to waste. When the steel industry began to use rubber in its furnaces, the material became “a valuable raw material for a completely different sector”, she says.

“If you can find a suitable technological solution for waste, and it’s not just being recycled because it has to be, but it’s truly seen as a raw material, it’s got a value on it. We all then learn to respect the waste. It shouldn’t end up in landfill then. The possibilities can be endless.” •

JUDGING A WINNER

This year the Innovation Challenge again unearthed a wealth of creative, game-changing developments. So what makes one entry stand out above the others? Chairman of the judging panel, dr Terry Cutler, explains what the judges look for.

Professor Veena Sahajwalla’s “green steelmaking” is an astonishing application of polymer injection technology. One of the

judges commended this entry as follows: “A brilliant process that has a significant impact on the environment at both ends – it reduces the amount of material that would otherwise end up as landfill and uses it to increase the efficiency of furnaces. A simple idea that has been thoroughly researched, developed and taken to market.”

The judging panel for choosing the overall winner comprised Australia’s chief scientist, Ian Chubb, the chief executive of the CSIRO, megan Clark, and the head of Commercialisation Australia, doron Ben-meir.

In picking the overall winner from the seven category finalists, the judging panel highlighted four points about their unanimous choice.

first, this entry stood out for the way it combines excellent science with deep industry engagement, with OneSteel – now renamed Arrium – being involved from the beginning. This could well be a textbook case study for how technology-based innovation should be developed.

Second, this innovation is a reminder that, even in so-called mature industries where there has been little change in industrial processes for ages, you can still suddenly have a game-changing innovation.

Third, this is a fine example of how you can have a “win/win” for both industrial productivity and the environment. One does not have to be at the expense of the other.

finally, this is an innovation that is having global impact, as it is being taken up internationally.

VEENA SAHAJWALLA‘green’ steelmaking – using old tyres and plastic to boost efficiency

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WINNER mINERals & ENERgy

FINALISTS

WINNER ICT THE AUSTRALIAN INNOVATION CHALLENGE

FINALISTS

John Howard Coherence imaging instruments for nuclear fusion researchRodger Connolly Rovality Pipe Coiling – for transport of plastic pipeDongsheng Xie Value recovery from smelting by-productsJeff Whittle Enterprise optimisation – to improve cash flow in mining

Baghaei says wave power is an immature renewable energy technology, partly because it is predicated on the solution of complex mathematical problems in fluid dynamics. However, it has been gaining momentum, partly because of increases in computational power. He wants to see arrays of big units, perhaps incorporated into breakwaters, deployed around the globe. He predicts that within 10 to 20 years the technology will exist to bring the arrays on par with coal-fired power stations, in terms of net power output, without the associated pollution.

The SA unit will produce electricity at a production cost of 28 cents per kW hour, against about 5 cents for electricity generated from fossil fuels. “It will drop to less than 10 cents per kW hour as soon as the first 75MW array is built,” Baghaei says, adding that the low cost will stimulate the adoption of the technology worldwide. •

Ali Baghaei is an unlikely environmental warrior. Early in his career, the engineer directed huge design and construction projects for nuclear and gas-fired power plants around the world. His formidable defence

background started with a post at Kvaerner in Scotland, where he was in charge of the design and construction of warships. He later directed a $30bn portfolio of projects with the UK Ministry of Defence.

Now he wants to save the world. Baghaei and colleagues at Sydney-based Oceanlinx won the minerals and energy category of The Australian Innovation Challenge awards with their wave power technology, greenWAvE. “I thought that it was probably the right opportunity to switch back to something that I was passionate about – and, I hope, leave some positive legacy for future generations,” Baghaei says.

Baghaei, who has a masters degree in mechanical and manufacturing engineering from the University of Liverpool, joined Oceanlinx as chief executive and managing director in 2009. Long fascinated by electricity generation, he is now a strong advocate of wave power, saying the largely untapped energy source could challenge wind power within three years and fossil fuels within seven years as a viable alternative component of the energy mix. In his view, wind power has reached its technological limit.

Oceanlinx will deploy a 1MW generator – the biggest such unit in the world, large enough to power 1000 households – off the coast of South Australia by the end of next year. The unit is a concrete structure that sits on the seabed. An opening lets water in and out. Water inside the unit’s chamber rises and falls in sync with passing waves, acting as a piston on the air column above it and turning a turbine to generate electricity.

Mathematician Tom Denniss founded Oceanlinx after pondering the power of waves at the Kiama blowhole on the NSW south coast. The company’s engineers and scientists have invested about 15 years’ research into refining the unit’s water column chamber and turbine.

greenWaVE – the world’s first one megawatt single unit wave energy converter

ALIBAGHAEI

wave powercouldchallengefossil fuelwithinseven years as a viablealternative componentof theenergy mix

CHRISTOpHERDRAkE

Australians form a big community in the valley and support one another. On his last day there, Drake formed an alliance with an expat Australian who was an expert in helping start-up companies commercialise their intellectual property.

Back in Australia, by the end of October he was finalising deals with big internet service providers on the use of his system, the CryptoPhoto anti-fraud token, under licence.

Drake has won the ICT category of the 2012 The Australian Innovation Challenge awards with the system, taking out $5000 in prize money.

CryptoPhoto is designed to block fraudsters using scams such as fake internet sites. Drake claims the system “plugs all the holes” most commonly exploited by fraudsters.

Available as a smartphone app or as a small printed card that is issued to clients on request, it has a grid of photos with corresponding codes known only to the issuing organisation and the user. When the customer logs on to the organisation’s website, one of the photos on their card appears on their screen, validating the authenticity of the site. The client then has to key in the corresponding code to complete the login.

What makes CryptoPhoto remarkable is that it is so low-tech. Indeed, when Drake first came up with the idea about five years ago he thought the system was so obvious that he didn’t bother to patent it. Only later, when no one had moved on a similar system, did he take out an application.

Drake has a serious background in ICT. He has a bachelor of applied science in computing from the Queensland University of Technology and has worked as a programmer for various companies, including banks. He has also run his own business, and has long had an interest in computer security.

Drake says making the finals of the Innovation Challenge awards last year helped his Silicon valley campaign. He funded his trip to Silicon valley himself but was supported by Advance, a public/private sector organisation that helps promote Australians in global networks.•C

hristopher Drake can hold his own in the cut-throat information and communications technology industry, but his first trip to Silicon valley was gruelling even for him. The computer programmer, based in

Noosa Heads, Queensland, has devised a way to counter computer fraud, and this year he found himself at the Californian innovation hub pitching his idea to venture capital and ICT companies. “It’s an awesome environment,” says Drake, who was among people from around the world hoping to make their fortune with the next big thing. “Silicon valley is about connecting with the people. It’s a lot of talking and coffees.”

the systemis designedto blockfraudstersusing scamssuch asfakeinternetsites

FINALISTS

Thomas Symul Quantum random number generatorTim Fung airtasker – odd-jobs employment websiteHajime Suzuki Ngara – fast rural wireless broadbandSandra Mau CeeQ – technology to search the web for photos

CryptoPhoto – a game-changer in internet security

WINNER

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FINALISTS

THE AUSTRALIAN INNOVATION CHALLENGE

some rivers to which phoslockhas been appliedhave nothad a seriousalgalbloomfor years

FINALISTS

doped with rare earth elements. “It’s all very simple, but no one else had done it and to make it work took a heck of a lot of research.”

Phoslock is sprayed on to the surface of the lake or river as a slurry. It strips the water of phosphate as it sinks, removing up to 95 per cent of the nutrient. When it settles as a layer on the bottom, it continues to absorb phosphate from the sediments.

The CSIRO originally licensed the technology to Sydney’s Phoslock Water Solutions, and later sold it to the company. “It’s a piece of research that has ended up being patented, commercialised, used in 20‑plus countries and has delivered a financial return to the CSIRO and an environmental benefit in both Australia and internationally,” says Douglas. He has seen the technology in action: some rivers to which Phoslock has been applied have not had a serious algal bloom for years.•

When London Olympics organisers were concerned about the impact of algal blooms on swimmers during events in the Serpentine Lake, Hyde Park, they turned to Australian technology.

Phoslock, invented by CSIRO geochemist Grant Douglas, has been used widely in lakes and rivers in Australia and more than 20 other countries. It immobilises phosphorus, a major nutrient that drives algal blooms, which can be toxic to humans and devastate aquatic ecosystems. Sources of phosphorus include fertiliser, catchment sediments and sewage.

Douglas, of CSIRO Land and Water, has won the environment, agriculture and food category of the 2012 The Australian Innovation Challenge. He had been working on water quality for more than 10 years when he focused his research on algal blooms, one of the biggest problems facing rural and urban aquatic environments.

Blooms are sporadic. Toxins produced by some algae and cyanobacteria, commonly known as blue‑greenalgae, make the water unfit for consumption by humans and livestock and can wreak havoc on aquatic biota and cause major fish kills. Extensive algal blooms in rivers can appear “almost like lime‑green paint” floating on the water, Douglas says. “I saw an opportunity,” he says. “There was nothing out there that was an effective and environmentally sound phosphorus absorbent.”

Douglas set out to synthesise a nano‑material that would react strongly with phosphate ions in water and “lock up” the nutrient. His solution mimicked nature. “I wanted to use something that was environmentally compatible,” he says. “That, to me, equalled a clay.”

He knew that the mineral monazite, which is composed of atoms of “rare earth” elements including lanthanum bonded strongly with phosphate ions, was chemically and physically stable. “Monazites have survived millions of years of weathering and transport and have ended up concentrated in beach sands,” he says. “That’s a testament to how robust they are. If we could copy nature, we could solve the problem.” The result was a clay‑based material

Phoslock – removing phosphorus from water to prevent harmful algal blooms

GRANTDOUGLAS

COLINSULLIVAN

the health category of the 2012 The Australian Innovation Challenge awards with the system.

Sonomat is an advance on current technology, which requires wiring the patient up to external sensors, often in a clinic. This is a barrier to routine home monitoring. The device is currently used for the early detection and monitoring of diseases such as asthma and cardiovascular and lung disease, but eventually it could be used as an alarm system. The Sonomat data, recorded on memory cards, is downloaded by real physicians, but Sullivan plans to seek approval for the device’s use worldwide as an online alarm system. He is doing tests to validate the system for that application. “I see this as technology that will be at the front end of healthcare in the home,” he says.

Sonomat uses sophisticated software that identifies and analyses the sound data to diagnose diseases and disorders. “It’s one of the great things about modern technology that you can transfer a lot of information both ways very quickly,” Sullivan says. “The disadvantage is that you’ve got to have quite intelligent systems to make sense of it. That’s what we’re doing.” Sullivan and his team used the diagnoses of diseases through sound signals collected from hundreds of patients to write the diagnostic algorithms for Sonomat. The algorithms embody expert knowledge from both human specialists and artificial intelligence systems.

When innovation policy heavyweights talk of Australia’s strength in medical devices, they are referring in part to Sullivan’s work. He invented the continuous positive airway pressure system, commercialised by ResMed and used worldwide to treat sleep apnea. He was a pioneer of sleep science, now a mainstream medical field. And he was central to the establishment of Australia’s first sleep clinics. Such facilities have sprung up around the country, but there are too few to meet demand, especially from children. Sullivan hopes Sonomat will fill the gap and identify disorders such as sleep apnea and asthma at an early age.

The road to his breakthroughs started in the early 1970s when he joined the international research effort to find out what causes sudden infant death syndrome – a problem that remains unsolved. “I was trying to develop methods of studying children at home,” he says. Sonomat might deliver some of the answers.•A

40‑year quest to solve the mystery of sudden infant death syndrome put Professor Colin Sullivan on the path to an invention that could eventually be used to sound the alarm if you have a medical emergency while you

sleep. Sonomat is a thin mat, impregnated with tiny sensors, that lies on the mattress. It acts as a cyber‑physician to monitor the sleeper’s vital signs, tracking their movements and recording sounds from the heart and lungs. Sullivan, a professor in medicine at the University of Sydney, has won

i see this as technologythat will be at the frontend of healthcarein the home

FINALISTS

Mike Harman Flexicam – mobile medical cameraHarvey Dillon Self-fitting hearing aidPeter Blamey Self-fit hearing aidsPeter Lee PCAST – low-cost artificial limbs

Sonomat – medical monitor

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WINNER HEALTH ENVIRONMENT, AGRICULTURE & FOOdWINNER

John Henshall Test to detect cattle carrying dNA coding for hornsDavid Allen Herbi – groundwater imager for irrigation channels, dams and riversKevin Healey BioWorma® – chemical-free parasite controlMichael McLaughlin RemScan – measuring petroleum hydrocarbons in soil

The Prelude natural gas fi eld lies more than 200km off the West Australian coast, under 250 metres of water.It’s a valuable resource in a diffi cult location but Shell has solved the challenge of getting the gas to the surface by building the world’s fi rst Floating Liquefi ed Natural Gas facility. While it’s a big commitment, the benefi ts to Australia are even greater: creation of about 1,000 jobs over the 25 years of the project; billions of dollars in tax revenue; access to an estimated three trillion cubic feet of ‘stranded’ gas; and another vital step towards securing our energy future. Let’s go beyond today’s thinking.

LET’S GO FURTHER TO POWER OUR FUTURE.

Search: Shell Let’s GoTo explore interactive stories on innovation in energy on your iPad, scan the code or search ‘INSIDE ENERGY’ in the App Store.

Follow us on Facebook/shellFollow us on Twitter/shell_australia

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WINNER EDUCATION

FINALISTS

WINNER COMMUNITY SERVICES THE AUSTRALIAN INNOVATION CHALLENGE

sciencewas beingtaught in primaryschoolsfor anaverage of just 45 minutes a week

FINALISTS

mark: 56 per cent of Australian primary schools have purchased at least some of the units and 350,000 copies of the full 31-unit course have been sold – a very fast take-up for an educational course. Peers acknowledges the financial support provided by the federal government. “Developing this kind of structure is very expensive, but it’s what differentiates the program and makes it so good. We had the time, the space and the money to do the best that we could do, and I believe it’s world-class.”

For Peers, the process has been enormously satisfying and a wish-come-true to convert good research into a practical, high-quality science education for Australia’s young people. “We’re not aiming for every kid to be a scientist. The really important thing is that every member of the community has sufficient scientific understanding that they are not easily duped by ‘whackery’. It’s about evidence-based thinking, and it’s really important.”•

It’s somewhat surprising that the latest in school science courses has been published as an old-fashioned hard-cover book. Research showed that’s what teachers wanted – and teachers are the key to the success of Primary Connections,

a comprehensively tested, innovative primary science program. “The research is telling us that the primary years are critical in engaging students in learning science. So a key thing that’s innovative about what we do is to build teachers’ confidence and their capacity to teach science,” says program director Shelley Peers.

Research also revealed that across Australia, science was being taught in primary schools for an average of just 45 minutes per week. That’s far less time than is spent in school assembly – and a devastatingly short duration for a nation supposedly positioning itself as the clever country.

In 2004, when the Australian Academy of Science decided to revise an old primary science course it had, Peers came on board armed with a masters in primary science education. The result is a thoroughly tested program spanning kindergarten to year 6, covering the entire Australian primary science curriculum. “Kids love science and asking questions and think it’s fascinating, but teachers aren’t very confident in the science area. So what we’ve done is produce educative materials that teach teachers how to teach science,” Peers explains.

It’s deliberately hands-on. “Nightmare in my lunchbox” lessons invite students to examine mould growing on fruit and investigate what makes mould grow faster or differently. In “Earthquake Explorers”, students model plate tectonics using coloured strips of putty. “Hands-on learning is absolutely critical for the kids to come to grips with what they’re doing and make meaning out of it,” says Peers. “This is not just about exploding things and being entertaining. We want them to have fun, but the high-level educational goals embedded in the course ensure that kids ‘get’ what science is about, and develop an evidence-based approach to understanding their world.”

In development for seven years, the course has hit its

Primary Connections – aresearch-based primary school science course

SHELLEYPEERS

JEFFREYTObIAS

door-knocking – a world where paper is still king and mass mail-outs rely on the motivated few to send back tear-off slips. This is not a space where Gen X or Gen Y operate.So Tobias drew together a team and they self-funded the development of GiveEasy, which connects philanthropy to the mobile digital world. It streamlines the process of giving so that it becomes paperless and instantaneous.

“You could be at the football, and an announcement goes out to support a charity’s Christmas appeal, or a disaster has just happened. You can pull out your iPhone and give instantly,” Tobias explains. “Once the app is launched, you see a list of charities and disaster appeals. One click allows you to select your preference and send some money. The donation is acknowledged, a tax receipt is emailed to you, and your relationship with GiveEasy is established.”

Tobias feels there will be a multiplier effect through social media as the option to tweet about the gift or notify Facebook friends prompts others to donate, too. The GiveEasy system also facilitates workplace giving. Employees can nominate a charity to receive regular salary deductions that can be matched by the employer.

Registered charities are signing up fast, Tobias says, in the expectation that the improved ease of giving will not only increase the amount of donations but also provide huge savings in administrative costs.

Developing the software was only one of the leaps Tobias and his team had to make. They also had to overcome Apple’s restriction on apps that aggregate donations to charities. “This has been a really, really big issue for charities and many have given up,” he says. “But we connected with Apple Australia, and also with Apple Inc, and we persevered.”

GiveEasy is a social enterprise and will cover costs through a small percentage levy on donations.

Tobias says the philanthropic world is buzzing with expectation about the innovation. “The charities we’ve been speaking to over the past number of weeks are very excited by this development because their view is GiveEasy can significantly grow the philanthropy pie. And this has been my aim; this is where we started from.”•W

ith his breakthrough innovation now available as an app for iPhone or iPad, Dr Jeffrey Tobias says GiveEasy promises to revolutionise how people donate to charity. “My background is in technology

and entrepreneurship, and I am philanthropic. My eureka moment was working out a way to get those two worlds to connect,” says Tobias, who believes GiveEasy is a first for Australia and probably the world.

In business, Tobias was aware of the rapid shift from desk-based computers to laptops and, more recently, to high levels of digital mobility. As a charity donor, however, he saw a different, labour-intensive world of call centres and

registeredcharitiesare signingup fast, expectingincreaseddonationsand hugesavings

FINALISTS

John La Salle Atlas of living Australia – biodiversity informationJeremy Austin Advanced DNA Forensics – for identifying the remains of missing persons, war dead and disaster victimsCathy Humphreys Find and Connect – web resource for people who grew up in childcare institutionsAlex McDonald Buffed Shoe-Shine – social franchised businesses for the marginalised

GiveEasy – a mobile platform to make donating to charity easier

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bridgette Dang Remote lab network for educationFarzad Safaei iSee video – 3D video conferencing toolbob Hill ELFS – enhanced learning in first-year sciencePeter Pentland STELR – secondary school science program

WINNER backyaRd INNovatIoN THE AUSTRALIAN INNOVATION CHALLENGE

FINALISTS

Commercialisation Australia, a federal government body that helps innovators get their ideas out the gate. The money is mainly for “proof of concept” work. Meanwhile, Will has filed patent applications in several countries.

Will, who was a finalist in The Australian Innovation Challenge awards last year, has been passionate about motor mechanics ever since he raced motorcycles as a teenager in his native Germany. He has an engineering degree from the University of Siegen, Germany, and is a senior lecturer in engineering at Deakin University, Geelong, where he is undertaking a PhD on the theoretical aspects of his invention.

“I’ve got the professional background, but not all the resources, unfortunately,” he says. His garage at Jan Juc is much too small. “I haven’t got a hoist. The car is just on two ramps. Every time I do a modification, I have to crawl underneath.” •

Frank Will’s garage in Jan Juc is a far cry from the hi-tech R&D facilities of the major car manufacturers. But the garage in the small coastal town near Geelong, Victoria, has produced an invention that is attracting

interest from big car makers around the world.Will’s system, called OVER7, is designed to cut fuel

consumption and a big European company has contracted him to test it in one of its models. It has raised his hopes that his brainchild will soon be adopted.

Few independent inventors get this far. Even though Will has inside knowledge of the industry – he worked for Ford for 18 years in Germany and Australia – it took him years to get his foot in the door to pitch his latest idea to car makers. “The trick is to find a champion who is high enough in the hierarchy to make a decision,” he says.

Will has won the Backyard Innovation prize in this year’s The Australian Innovation Challenge awards.

OVER7 has three components – a valve, a heat exchanger and extra piping – to modify the lubrication system to recover and use energy that is normally wasted. It transfers heat from the exhaust gases to the oil, thinning the lubricant to further reduce friction between engine parts. It also makes the oil flow faster, cutting the volume of fuel guzzled in pumping it to parts including the cylinder head.

Will says that only 20 per cent of the fuel consumed by cars is used to propel them. The rest is wasted as heat, so the system could cut greenhouse gas emissions greatly. He says that if OVER7 were installed in 10 per cent of new and second-hand cars around the world, 9.9 billion litres of fuel would be saved each year and about 23 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions would be avoided. He says independent tests have shown that OVER7 can cut fuel consumption by 7 per cent and emissions by 27 per cent.

Will has invested $20,000 of his own money into the project. “That doesn’t include the time I spend on the invention. Sometimes I work late into the night and on Saturdays. If there’s a deadline, I work Sundays as well,” he says. “With most inventions, if you knew at the start how long it was going to take, you’d probably only begin 10 per cent of the projects.”

His company, Ino8, last year won a $153,000 grant from

ovER7 – technology to reduce fuel consumption

FRANk WILL

the systemcould cutboth fueluse andgreenhouseemissions greatly

THE REd CARpETCHALLENGE

the realworldrarely lays down thered carpet – it forcesyou to find another way in

never guaranteed, there are plenty of dead ends, and the final result is often dramatically different from the one initially contemplated.

The following example is a little long in the tooth but it illustrates the point. In the late 1960s, the research laboratories of Thorn EMI in London were working on a way of securely storing music on magnetic tape so that it couldn’t be copied. After all, music rights were a substantial part of their business and magnetic tape was gaining momentum as an alternative to vinyl records for storing and playing music.

Their answer was ingenious: they invented structured magnetic tape (“Watermarked Magnetics”) which allowed music (data) to be encrypted in such a way that rendered it unplayable when copied to another tape.

Sadly, the horse had already bolted. Cassette recorders/players were proliferating, people loved being able to copy music using their tape recorders, and securing the technology would add a significant cost impost. Watermark Magnetics never succeeded in the music market. It’s worth noting that Thorn EMI was a substantial business: at this point a start-up would most likely have failed.

For Thorn EMI though, all was not lost. It took another two decades, but eventually the company closed a deal with Ascom Holdings (a Swiss telecommunications conglomerate) to use Watermark Magnetics to secure stored value on public payphone cards. The system was successfully deployed in a number of countries around the world. Who could have imagined in 1968 that Watermark Magnetics might eventually be used in payphones?

The point is that not even the largest companies and the most experienced practitioners are immune from failure, but persistence, diligence, imagination and quality execution do pay off in the end.

However clever the technology, and however apparently perfect the solution to a problem, market success can prove elusive for many reasons. The good entrepreneur knows when to persevere and when to pivot and try something else. Success relies on having deep knowledge of the subject technology and the target market (its players, politics, trends and opportunities) and a compelling value proposition. Those challenges are what make good entrepreneurs so rare.

For us to achieve a greater commercial conversion of our inventive talents, we need to combine quality entrepreneurism with thoughtful inventiveness to deliver well targeted propositions. Failure under these circumstances will be just a step along the path to success – a path we must consistently support for our collective long-term benefit.•doron Ben-MeirCEO, Commercialisation Australia

The Australian Innovation Challenge has again demonstrated the ingenuity and creativity of a diverse cross-section of Australian society. No wonder I am so often asked: “Why don’t we see more successful companies being

built off the back of our world-class research?” The short answer is: “Because too many fail to rise to the real challenge – the construction of a value proposition.”

It’s not enough to create a new technology or service offering a host of features and benefits that convincingly address a real-world problem. You also have to be able to answer the question, “Why will someone buy it?”

Unfortunately, the real world very rarely lays down the red carpet. Instead, having blockaded the front door to strangers, it forces you to find another way into the building. Gaining entry is the entrepreneurial challenge, and it’s a challenge that requires a very different set of skills and experience than those required to invent the new technology in the first place.

I often refer to the necessary work as “commercialisation R&D” because, much like technical R&D, the results are

Innovation is exciting and inspiring, but it’s only the first step. doron ben-Meir, cEo of commercialisation australia and a judge of the australian Innovation challenge, explains what must come next

1716

Brett poulsen drive from wheelchair scooter side-carZelman McLaren Folding Flat-Pack House – remote or emergency housing kit; Envirobelt – conveyor belts reused for erosion controlJamie Stenhouse Ezywire – fencing wire handling deviceRobert Irvine Slurry recycling guard for concrete saws Simon Williams deliver E trike – electric cargo scooter

skin – called applicators – works well in low resource settings,” Kendall says. The Nanopatches are postage stamp-sized silicon wafers, each with thousands of microscopic projections, with tips dry-coated in vaccine. Within minutes of application, the spikes deposit vaccine in layers of skin rich in immune cells. The PNG trial used proxies for Nanopatches, without vaccine.

Kendall says the deal with Merck is a major milestone. “We don’t make vaccines – we deliver them and we need a partner,” he says. “Merck seriously evaluated 41 different technologies around the world, and they chose ours.” Last year, Kendall’s team won the manufacturing and hi-tech design category and the overall prize in The Australian Innovation Challenge awards.

of the individual road transport operators, Verden says. He says an independent study shows that the Indigo Solver has the potential to save Australian industry billions of dollars a year. “We can deliver operators savings of up to 20 per cent,” he says.

The team focused initially on ways to increase the efficiency of transporting perishable goods from factories to retail outlets. However, Verden says retailers and public transport operators have recently sounded his team out on adopting the technology. “We’re in the process of commercialising this technology in a number of directions,” he says.

Meanwhile, the team has developed the system further by adding a facility to calculate the costs to operators of deliveries to individual customers.•

Increasing fuel and labour costs and worsening traffic congestion in cities are stimulating interest in sophisticated software to optimise scheduling and routing in road transport operations. Computer scientist Andrew Verden, of National ICT Australia,

says several big operators have approached his team about the use of the Intelligent Fleet Logistics Indigo Solver to reduce transport costs. Verden and colleague Philip Kilby won the ICT category of the inaugural The Australian Innovation Challenge awards last year for the software.

NICTA, a research centre funded by federal and state governments, has been working on the Indigo Solver for five years. The system tackles the complex mathematical problems involved in road transport logistics, factoring in variables including distances, deadlines and fleet sizes and human factors such as driver fatigue. The system, which draws on artificial intelligence techniques, can find routes to thousands of destinations with hundreds of vehicles while observing the business rules and practices

THE AUSTRALIAN INNOVATION CHALLENGE

18

LOGISTICS SOfTwARE dELIVERS THE GOOdSNICTA’s Andrew Verden and Philip Kilby, winners of last year’s ICT category for their Indigo road transport logistics solver, are attracting wider interest in the innovation.

the trialcame justweeksafter adeal wasannouncedon jointresearchwith merck

At a PNG hospital in October, Mark Kendall witnessed a scene that he hopes his invention will make a thing of the past – children with diseases that could have been prevented through vaccination. The University of

Queensland biomedical engineer was overseeing the first usability trial of his brainchild, Nanopatch – a patch to replace needles and syringes in vaccination.

The trial came just weeks after the start-up company Vaxxas, co-founded by Kendall, announced a deal with the pharmaceuticals giant Merck on joint research to evaluate the technology for commercial production as a delivery system for an undisclosed vaccine. The trial at Port Moresby General Hospital, independent of the collaborative research with Merck, is a precursor to clinical trials of the technology, which promises to save millions of lives by revolutionising vaccination in developing countries. “Its aim was to check that medical staff found the way the Nanopatches are applied to the

VACCINE pATCH CLEARS ANOTHER HURdLEMark Kendall, last year’s overall winner of The Australian’s Innovation Challenge, has had a busy year as his revolutionary product jumps closer to commercialisation.

retailersand publictransportoperatorssoundedout theteam on adoptingthetechnology

Shell’s history of backing unconventional energy solutions dates right back to the 19th century, when we built the fi rst-ever tanker to move petroleum through the Suez Canal. Today, Shell spends over a billion dollars a year on research and development, more than any other oil and gas major. We’re exploring better ways to extract unconventional gas, the development of new biofuels, groundbreaking Floating Liquefi ed Natural Gas technology, and any other solution that might broaden our energy mix. Let’s invest in tomorrow.

LET’S THINKUNCONVENTIONALLY.

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Where should the world get its future energy from? It’s the question that drives and inspires Shell most. It’s also why we invited students from all around the world to join our Global Energy Forum, and challenge us with new ideas and new thinking. At our fi rst debate in Perth at the end of September, we were presented with fi ve diverse possible solutions, ranging from wave power to hydrogen to hemp. The world’s challenges may be signifi cant but, as these young thinkers made clear, so too are the opportunities. Let’s work together for the future.

LET’S KEEP THEDISCUSSION GOING.

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