• Defence industry hands out awards
• Climate solutions showcased
• Storm stops Whalers Way launch
• Helping women in business
• Reforming a wasteful tourism sector to increase profits
• Screen time for South Australia
• Digging deep for resource hub

Defence industry hands out awards

South Australia’s peak industry body has named its annual Defence Teaming Centre award winners with Elexon Electronics winning the resilience award for developing an Intelligent Industry 4.0 production facility helping the company avoid offshore production.

Judges said this helped create new high-skilled manufacturing jobs locally.

“Where possible they design their products in a way that raw material, components as well as sub-assemblies can be sourced locally from well-established and longstanding suppliers,” they said.

“This allows them to eliminate the risk of supply chain disruptions due to delays and uncertainties in shipping from overseas locations.”

The Teaming Award went to Adelaide-headquartered Nova Systems along with NORSTA Maritime, Tropical Reef Shipyard, SECORA & Norship, for their joint venture project, Team NORSTA.

The joint venture is helping reshape naval sustainment in Australia through a Regional Maintenance Provider (RMP) model in Queensland.

CBG Systems won the Innovation Award for the development of Rapid Access Composite (RAC) Plus, a new lightweight panel that is certified for installation in steel ships.

The RAC Plus panels comply with fire safety shipping regulations and can withstand temperatures of over 1000°C while maintaining structural integrity.

They repel water and are reversible, potentially doubling their service life, weighing about half as much as traditional metal cladding resulting in reduced fuel consumption and ultimately lower carbon emissions.

The DTC raised $38,000 for the Seeing Differently OPK9 program from the awards night, with funds going toward training a puppy to become an assistance dog for veterans with PTSD.

Belinda Willis

Climate solutions showcased

Founders of two South Australian climate tech companies are with Deputy Premier Susan Close in Egypt this week at the COP27 UN climate conference.

Val.Ai and Project Green Group are pitching their innovations to a global audience of potential investors, collaborators and customers as they join about 40,000 global delegates during the conference.

Val.Ai and Project Green Group are part of the South Australian Government’s participation in the CivTech Alliance’s Global Scale-Up Program to support climate start-ups increase visibility, access global markets and accelerate growth.

Last year, Rohan Hamden, co-founder and CEO of Adelaide-based startup XDl:Cross Dependency Initiative (XDI), travelled to the UK for COP26 and met with some of the world’s largest financial firms.

Hamden and XDI has since fast-tracked business growth and expect to employ 100 staff by the end of 2022.

Val.Ai founder Allys Todd said his climate tech company’s vision is to decarbonise the economy and leave no household behind.

The Australian government has announced it will seek to host COP31 and South Australia is actively supporting that bid.

Belinda Willis

Storm stops Whalers Way launch

The Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex on the tip of the Eyre Peninsula. Photo: Southern Launch

A planned launch of ATSpace’s “Kestrel I” rocket from the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex has been postponed after severe weather caused an electrical fault to the launch vehicle.

This prolonged electrical storm activity over the weekend damaged the rocket’s electrical systems and ATSpace has advised repairs to the vehicle must be carried out off site.

ATSpace CEO Dr Yen-Sen Chen said the launch is scrubbed until further notice.

“ATSpace will carry out thorough checks of the rocket system and we will resume the launch campaign as soon as possible,” he said.

This is the second failed launch attempt at the site, but Southern Launch CEO Lloyd Damp said they take every precaution to protect their customer’s assets and their own systems.

“We have infrastructure in place to manage electrical storm activity. The sheer volume of lightning strikes in the area was unprecedented and unfortunately caused damage to the vehicle,” he said.

Helping women in business

A new Women in Business Advisory Program launched last week to help women scale up and build high growth businesses is offering 38 half scholarships.

Behind Closed Doors has partnered with the State Government to provide women insights into establishing best practice governance, undertake strategic planning and assemble effective and balanced advisory boards.

Behind Closed Doors managing director Donny Walford said the program is designed for female business owners and entrepreneurs to build a support network to discuss strategies, issues and challenges to further achieve and succeed in business ventures.

The program’s objectives are to:

• Deliver practical sessions to generate more effective business owners
• Assist business owners to improve business growth and financial knowledge
• Encourage and support members to establish an Advisory Board for their business
• Provide a confidential business owner’s support network
• Expand and broaden networks and business relationships
• Extend individuals personally and professionally
• Increase the expertise of female business owners and entrepreneurs
• Mentor peers to accept greater business challenges
• Assist members to participate in awards programs such as the Telstra Business Awards.

Applications for scholarships co-funded by the State Government to cover half of the program fees for female business owners in three categories are now open.

“Sadly, we weren’t surprised by the findings in the Deloitte Report into female founders which uncovered that the share of funding in Australia received by women-only founded businesses was less than one per cent in FY22,” Walford said.

“This low share of funding to businesses with women founders is occurring while capital deployed to start-ups increased tenfold in the past four years.”

Belinda Willis

Reforming a wasteful tourism sector to increase profits

Dr Tracey Dodd from the Adelaide Business School is leading a three-year study into food waste in the tourism industry to help cut costs across the sector and contribute to lasting environmentally-friendly change.

“In 2021, the National Food Waste Strategy Feasibility Study reported that food waste from hospitality consumption, of which tourism is a subset, totalled approximately 1,217,000 tonnes per annum,” Dr Dodd said.

“Other research shows that hotels, cruises, convention centres, and other tourism operators waste up to 20 per cent of all food purchased. This is due to overproduction, cooking mistakes, damaged products, and leftovers. This presents opportunities for improvements and savings.”

Her team will gather interview data from a national sample of hotels, cruises, convention centres, and other tourism operators.

Ian Horne, the CEO of the Australian Hotels Association SA Branch, said it’s important for the industry to consider more sustainable practices.

“Venues that do so will have a competitive edge,” he said.

“We look forward to seeing how the outcome of the research can help hotels across the state, including both small and large operators.”

Fight Food Waste CEO Dr Steven Lapidge said the group is funding the research in an effort to reach its goal of halving food waste in Australia by 2030.

“The Fight Food Waste CRC was established to facilitate collaboration between industry and research that leads to meaningful solutions which will advance us towards that goal,” Dr Lapidge said.

Jim Plouffe

Screen time for South Australia

Erik Thomson and Natalie Abbott in season two of the SA-made drama ‘Aftertaste’. Photo: ABC

South Australia’s screen sector has achieved positive results in this year’s national drama spend, with a total of $144 million spent in the state on drama production and post production in 2021-22.

According to Screen Australia’s National Drama Report released today, South Australia’s drama spend is up 47 per cent on last year’s total of $98 million, and is nearly on par with 2019-20’s record high of $148 million.

Included in the $144 million total spend was $89 million expenditure on PDV (post production, digital and visual effects), a more than 115 per cent increase on last year’s total of $41 million.

South Australia’s PDV expenditure represents 16 per cent of the national total, and ranks the state third in the national PDV spend breakdown behind New South Wales and Victoria.

South Australian Film Corporation CEO Kate Croser said the expenditure was driven by South Australian companies and producers, listing nine local productions that contributed to the spend, but singling out post production as the big winner.

“South Australia continues to punch above its weight in PDV, with the state’s record-breaking $89 million spend on titles including Elvis, Thor: Love and Thunder, Joe Vs Carole, La Brea S2 and Hawkeye, ranking the state as the third highest spend in the nation,” she said.

“This is further testament to the strength of our globally recognised and award-winning PDV sector – including studios such as Rising Sun Pictures, MPC, Resin, KOJO and Artisan Post Group – supported by the SAFC’s highly successful SA PDV Rebate.”

Jim Plouffe

Digging deep for resource hub

CORE Innovation Hub is opening at Lot Fourteen in 2023 for companies in the resources and energy sector.

The Adelaide co-working space is being designed as a central base for growth stage businesses looking to expand, and larger organisations looking for greater flexibility.

Innovative SME’s in energy and resources can now attend hardhat tours to learn about different options for small and fast-growing businesses in the latest addition to the state’s innovation district that has more than 1400 entrepreneurs, innovators and researchers working across 125 businesses and organisations.

There are 14 dedicated offices at the Core hub with some already leased, six dedicated desks, 15 co-working desks, a 12-person boardroom, three private meeting rooms and an event space for networking and functions.

Lot Fourteen is already home to the Australian Space Agency, Australian Institute of Machine Learning, MIT bigdata Living Lab, Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre and the Stone and Chalk startup hub.

It also now has Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud to the district. In 2022, construction commences on the Entrepreneur and Innovation Centre and Innovation Hub.  Learn more here.

Belinda Willis