Two Emergent group proposals for defence technology projects were shortlisted from submissions from across Australia to compete for the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA) pitch day recently held in Sydney. One of them won the national competition.
ASCA opened a Request for Information (RFI) in August, seeking innovative asymmetric solutions to Defence challanges, providing them with insights into new capabilities and innovations. The RFI sought sovereign solutions from Australian industry and research organisations to two broad themes:
Theme 1 – Power and Energy: Energy sources for deployable and fixed sites, and agile operation capabilities.
Theme 2 – Acoustic Data Collection and Processing: Sensors, edge processing and high-performance computing for data processing.
Dr Glenn Platt, Emergent group’s Managing Director, responded to theme 1, proposing a portable low-observability solar charging concept. Glenn’s idea to lighten the load for soldiers in the field utilises flexible and camouflaged solar cells coupled with lightweight batteries and reduced size inverters.
Glenn pitched against 14 others from organisations and companies across the country, including CSIRO, Toshiba, Aquila Space Technology and 3ME Technology. His pitch was selected as the best on the day.
“It was quite an honour to have my pitch judged as the winner, particularly as the calibre of organisations being represented was so high.
“It demonstrates that future thinking about our biggest challenges doesn’t have to come from the big research organisations or corporations, it can come from smaller companies too,” said Glenn.
Pitching for theme 2, Acoustic Data Collection and Processing, was Simon Bull, representing Advitech, Emergent group’s Engineering and Environmental consultancy.
Simon’s proposal was for Covert Acoustic Swarm Network for Maritime Threat Detection, leveraging Emergent Group’s expertise in AI, sound and signal processing, and autonomous sensing systems.
Again, the competition was formidable, with 14 people representing the likes of CSIRO, Aurizin Defence, NanoCube and Mercury Information Security Services. Just to be included in such company was testament to the quality of Simon’s efforts.
Glenn acknowledges that the pitch is just the beginning of a research and development journey.
“Our ideas have been judged as good enough to get us over this line, so we’ll continue working to see just how far we can take these advanced technologies.
“It’s challenging but really exciting seeing a vision go from a seed of an idea to fruition, and the breadth of Emergent Group’s capability means we’ve the foundations to address an incredible range of challenges,” said Glenn.
Emergent group, through its companies Advitech, Novecom, Acubis and Emergex Manufacturing, is always happy to hear the challenges faced by industry and government and collaborate to find innovative technical solutions.
