This appeared last week:
Deep tech is finally in the spotlight
After years flying under the radar and being overshadowed by crazily overvalued software companies, Australia’s deep tech sector is finally winning acclaim.
There is no doubt the achievements of these companies are impressive. They have created enormous wealth for their shareholders and employees, resulting in combined market value of about $108 billion.
Their founders – Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar; Canva’s Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams; and WiseTech’s Richard White – are making a difference to society through philanthropy and the pursuit of personal passions such as decarbonisation of the economy.
But when it comes to breakthrough scientific innovations, the more impressive tech success stories are blood group CSL and medical device companies ResMed and Cochlear.
The combined value of these global companies, at $162 billion, is much greater than that of their software counterparts. More importantly, they have – and will continue to have – a profound impact on millions of lives.
CSL, ResMed and Cochlear come from the deep tech side of the technology world. Their foundations are built on scientific research and development, which is sorely needed given that only about 12 of the world’s 2500 leading R&D companies are Australian.
The success of these three companies goes against the grain because we have a history of not recognising the value of our own scientific breakthroughs.
Looking in the rear-view mirror
Australia was a world leader in the science of vaccines, but ended up outsourcing our COVID-19 mRNA manufacturing to the Americans and Europeans. We invented Wi-Fi and sold it to the Americans. We led the world in photovoltaics and handed it to the Chinese.
Unfortunately, our investment in future industries has been driven by looking in the rear-view mirror.
But there are strong indications that this is changing.
This year looks like being the best year for deep tech for a very long time, with increasing financial support from government and industry.
The first positive news is that Cicada Innovations, which has supported science and technology start-ups for 20 years, is taking over the running of the Tech23 deep tech conference founded by Rachel Slattery.
Lots more here:
https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/deep-tech-is-finally-in-the-spotlight-20221209-p5c4z8
The good thing about these 3 last-mentioned companies is that they remain listed in Australia and Australians are benefiting with jobs and dividends as they grow and develop.
While not as glamourous as the first mentioned all three are quietly going about their now global agendas to make a positive difference world wide. It is fascinating that all 3 were basically grown from work begun at Sydney and Melbourne Unis. Pity Governments don’t take innovation from the uni sector more seriously as there is much good that could flow beyond what is already happening!
We also do have a pretty good Digital Health sector which could, again, really do a lot, with just a little more help! Basically the issue is that a certain scale is necessary to be self-sustaining and OZ needs to be bigger to make more things possible….
David.
1 comment:
Great article David and a good reminder, transformation is as much about the smaller quieter things as it is about the big noises made by empty vessels
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