Another great DutchSA innovation night with Andrew Downs, Terry Burgess, Joe Thorp, Anton van den Hengel and Nam Nguyen
The company visit to Sage Automation showed how a company that loses its original manufacturing clients (like Holden and Bridgestone) can successfully reinvent itself as an international technology integration powerhouse. Andrew Downs, the founder and managing director of Sage Group, also explained how Sage staff was involved in designing their perfect workplace in the Tonsley Innovation district. A simple but not very common approach to mobilise all internal knowledge to make excellent collaborative decisions. We suspect this is a cultural trait that is at the basis of the success of Sage Automation.
Joe Thorp, the Chief Executive of TechInSA, the government incubator, gave a powerful overview of the capabilities and activities to create an ideal startup climate in South Australia and presented a large number of inspiring new ventures. Joe’s presentation highlighted the 4 major capabilities driving innovation in the state, of which our DutchSA innovation event covered 2: the Australian Institute for Machine Learning and the Tonsley Innovation District. Joe mentioned taking a lot of useful learnings from his visit to Amsterdam which took deliberate steps to become a prime hub for startups and investors.
One of the most revered innovation districts in the world is Brainport in The Netherlands, centred around the Philips high tech campus in Eindhoven and now housing 100’s of startups and multinationals like ASML, Intel, IBM, NXP, Bosch, Boeing, DAF, TNO.
- 90% of silicon chips worldwide are produced with equipment originating from Brainport.
- Brainport produces 7 times more patents per capita than the number 2 global innovation region (San Diego).
Tonsley is very similar in starting conditions and size to Brainport a few decades ago and it is a good idea to keep a close eye on the triple helix approach that made Brainport the smartest region in the world.
When Brainport set out the ambition to also create the smartest urban district in the world, they asked Malik Institute from Sank Gallen in Switzerland to help them with the complex decision making process to develop a holistic and effective smart city strategy in a few days. Dr. Nam Nguyen is the Adelaide based APAC director for Malik Institute and also a visiting research fellow of the University of Adelaide. Nam presented the Brainport smart district strategy development using the Malik Syntegration process.
The last talk was from professor Anton van den Hengel, the director of the Australian Institute for Machine Learning. Anton was born in The Netherlands and migrated at the age of 4 to Adelaide. He returned to live and work in Amsterdam a few years ago, but the summit of his career is the machine learning institute he is heading up based in Adelaide. in the old Royal Adelaide hospital building. The institute is one of the most renowned in the world and has a massive potential to spin off new businesses based on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Anton’s talk was about getting us to understand the basics and importance of machine learning, which was highly successful. Many are now considering a change of careers.
As always the networking section of our event was great and many new connections were made and old ones refreshed. Thanks all for attending and hope to see you back in the next edition!
- Malik Syntegration Presentation (Nam Nguyen): www.helmond.nl/bis/2017/Raadsinformatiebrieven%20(RIB)/RIB%20041%20Bijlage%201%20Syntegration%20Brainport%20Smart%20Disctrict.pdf
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This event was made possible by our event sponsors Mindavation and Malik Institute!
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