Media Release
From: CRC AssociationTop Australian innovations honoured at Collaborate | Innovate | 2019
Innovations from life-saving emergency warnings to cancer therapy to energy sharing were among the winners at the Excellence in Innovation Awards held at the Cooperative Research Centres Association’s annual conference on Wednesday 29th May.
The CEO of the CRC Association, Dr Tony Peacock said: “The judges were blown away by the quality of entries this year. We have made five awards but there were easily double that number again worthy of recognition. It is a testament to the fantastic work CRCs continue to do.”
The awards recognise outstanding examples of collaborative, innovative research that has a demonstrated impact on Australia. Although generally up to four awards are given, the calibre of entrants was so high that five were awarded this year.
The Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, with research teams from the Queensland University of Technology and Macquarie University, has developed better-targeted, long-term public safety campaigns for emergency service agencies around Australia, combined with evidence-based warning messages that are delivered to at-risk populations who are threatened by imminent natural hazards.
The Cell Therapy Manufacturing CRC and its spin-out company, Carina Biotech, have developed a world-first, broad-spectrum cancer therapy that has shown activity against at least 9 cancers in preclinical studies. After having raised substantial financial and collaborative support, Carina hopes its chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy - that harnesses the power of the body’s immune system to reject cancer - will be ready for the first in-human clinical trial in 2020.
Power Ledger, an international energy sharing company born from research funded by the CRC for Low Carbon Living, is enabling the world-wide secure and efficient capture and trade of renewable energy. Beginning as a CRCLCL project that used blockchain technology to monitor how residents in Perth could share and trade electricity from shared solar power and battery storage technology, the company aims to decentralise and democratise power.
Insight, produced by Fivecast, a spin-out from the Data to Decisions CRC, is a world-first data collection and analysis platform that provides threat analytics for law enforcement and national security. Insight has evolved from the CRC’s Apostle research program and is powered by machine learning. It delivers critical operational insights to users from vast quantities of unstructured multimedia data to counter violent extremism, fight organised crime, uphold public safety, conduct security vetting and identify insider threats. Fivecast Insight has been commercially released in Australia and the USA.
The Rail Manufacturing CRC, along with the University of Technology Sydney and Downer, have developed Dwell Track, a technical solution to help Australian rail operators to understand and ease passenger congestion, helping keep services on-time and efficient. Dwell Track uses 3D camera technology and perception algorithms to anonymously monitor passenger numbers and behaviour in real-time on station platforms. This allows station staff to make better decisions when guiding passengers around the platform, plus also provides long-term insights where the movement of people in crowded spaces can benefit from optimisation of how spaces are run.
The annual conference of the Cooperative Research Centres Association (CRC Association) at the Adelaide Hilton, May 28-30, joins researchers, educators and industry with a diverse community of CRC Association members.
