Let's create the future we want
Venturing requires a point of view on the future, and then it takes work.
This week:
Imagine your next adventure at The Globe by Innovation Bay
See how Synbio10x is creating real companies fast
Explore a future you want at Tech23 and SXSW↙SYDNEY
Imagine your next adventure at The Globe
I will never forget my first encounter with scientists imagining new businesses.
It was the first session for the second cohort of Australia’s national deep tech accelerator - ON Accelerate. It was the year that companies like Future Feed, Emesent and Coviu took their first steps. I was a seasoned entrepreneur building SaaS platforms and marketplaces and was getting a little bored. And here was a solution to 9.4% of GHG emissions, an autonomous drone for safely navigating dangerous terrain like mines and a whole new way to treat patients online. I was in awe, and this has fueled me every day since.
Making more of these moments remains a challenge we have not yet solved as a community. But we need to because deep tech companies need equal measures of entrepreneurial + scientific skills.
Sadly, these tribes are still too separate.
We’re trying to do something about this at The Globe by Innovation Bay on June 16th in Sydney. We will pair up entrepreneurs and scientists to get some new businesses off the ground.
Here are some of the ideas we will build around extracted from the current pipeline at CSIRO and Main Sequence. All of them need commercial co-founders to join some of the best scientists in the country.
A simpler, more secure way to authenticate identity without relying on servers and passwords. Individuals can store, manage, share and control their own identity data.
A new industrial process that will make wire from recycled titanium waste for applications in aerospace, defence and additive manufacturing and which will be important in establishing a titanium supply chain in Australia.
A digital manufacturing solution that takes CAD information and sensor data and automatically produces robot programs for repair and additive manufacturing.
Technology that brings together data from many different sources to create a single 4-dimensional view of the world.
Digital provenance mapping for the agri-food supply chain.
Iron diagnostic and bioactive iron supplements and nutritional solutions.
Upcycled designer aquafeed for targeted species. Less carbonisation, less footprint, less waste
Plant-based protein concentrate manufacturing facility using AI in crops tailored to end-product use.
Skincare products for wound care
Creating a computer-aided design framework for living systems to harness and redirect cellular processes and to scale up innovation in synthetic biology and biotechnology
Developing a precision fermentation-based method to decarbonise the palm oil sector.
Creating environmentally friendly natural pigments and dyes for textiles through precision fermentation.
Creating a green & scalable biomanufacturing platform using duckweed and moss. Food for space civilisations.
A portable and modular algae carbon capture and biomanufacturing platform.
Capturing CO2 emissions from brewing & fermentation processes to grow algae for bio-production.
A modular and scalable bioreactor and biomanufacturing platform, more than 10x more productive than conventional systems.
Hardware that enables simplified creation of organoids facilitating enhanced drug discovery and unlocking personalized medicine development.
Unlocking the potential of probiotics by using biotechnology creating Omega oil products
Next-generation polymer vesicle technology and manufacturing to create the future of therapeutics.
Circularising biomanufacturing by valorising fermentation waste into high-value products.
Developing nitrogen fixing and additive bacteria to remove the need for chemical fertilizers and soil enhancers in agriculture.
If any of these interest you, come along to The Globe and explore it with me in the subscriber chat below.
Synbio10x is building real companies - like Cauldron
Some of the ideas above will be spun up at Synbio10x.
Synbio10x is Australia’s biotech accelerator that Main Sequence co-founded with UNSW. We’re building real companies there and getting them to scale quickly.
Last week I was a proud visitor to Orange to see Cauldron coming to life. At Synbio10x last year, this was just an idea. Now it is a functioning, modern bioproduction platform in #moonshotcountry.
Jason Whitfield is running Synbio10x and comfortably spans the worlds of biochemistry and company building. He was on Asiatech Podcast last week, and it’s a great listen.
Help us imagine the future at Tech23 and SXSW↙SYDNEY
Main Sequence is sponsoring Australia’s deep tech conference, Tech23, on 26th July.
This is the event where people who are inventing the future come together to compare notes and get inspired. The five themes this year are The Rebuilt Environment, Co-Designing with Nature, Shifting the Mindset in Medicine, Putting an End to Waste and Reimagining Time. Plus, you’ll get to meet the 23 companies who are leading the charge.
On the day before, I am going to run a masterclass called Future Shock for a select group of founders to place their version of the future on a larger canvas for the Australian innovation community. Let me know if you want to come along in the subscriber chat below, and I’ll reserve a place before it opens up officially.
Later in the year, we have joined together with CSIRO to support the 2050 track at SXSW↙SYDNEY at which some of these ideas will spring into life on a stage where science and art collide with the full potential of humanity.
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The future will be incredible if we want it to be. And if we do the work.