New Acland Mine was a buzz with creative tech chatter on Wednesday 25th of October as a busload of mining industry startups descended on the operation from Brisbane to pitch their ideas to a real-life mine site.
Entrepreneurs from five new technology businesses took part in a comprehensive tour of the open cut coal mine as part of their involvement in the six-month Unearthed Accelerator Program.
New Acland General Manager David Vink said organisations like open innovation platform Unearthed play a key role in supporting entrepreneurship in the resource industry.
“Entrepreneurship has always been an integral part of the work we do at New Acland Mine so we jumped at the opportunity to host these five new startups,” Mr Vink said.
“New Acland Mine has around 550 contractors on our books, with a large portion made up of small to medium businesses started by local entrepreneurs in the communities around our mine site.”
“You look at the positive impact these businesses have on Oakey and our local area and you can’t help but appreciate how important the entrepreneurial spirit is and how much opportunity it can bring to the local economy and local workforce.”
Personal safety start-up Canaria was among the five businesses to tour New Acland, and Co-Founder and Product Development Director Dr Rob Finean said he enjoyed visiting the mine site and learning about Queensland’s competitive advantage in the energy and resources sector.
Previously based in London, Canaria won the global award for Best Use of Hardware at NASA Space Apps 2016 with a personal safety wearable prototype.
“When we looked at the various industry applications of our tech, we found that there was a comparatively shorter path to market in mining,” Mr Finean said.
“We are thrilled to be working with Unearthed, because there aren’t many natural resources companies in London.”
“The access to industry that Unearthed can provide in Australia is paramount,” Dr Finean said.
Four more mining industry startups are taking part in Unearthed’s Accelerator Program and include real time drilling performance optimisation solution Modulr Tech; continuous flow payments (CFP) technology banking platform Flowpay; SiteSee, whose web accessible software enables remote infrastructure inspection and 3D modelling within an interactive real-world environment; and processing plant audio analysis solution SOUNDelve, which allows your equipment to speak for itself.