Curtin Successes
Curtin is committed to producing excellent, industry-relevant research. Over the years, this has led to many technologies being developed with real commercial potential and of considerable value to the community. With the help of a $5m pre-seed fund approved by the Curtin Council, many of these technologies are now being successfully commercialised on the global stage. In 2007, four of the seven Western Australian Inventor of the Year Awards were won by companies spun out of Curtin.
Scanalyse Pty Ltd
Scanalyse has developed 3D laser scanning technology for wear management and improved process control in mineral processing applications and has unique, world-leading, patented products. MillMapperTM, the company’s most advanced product, has attracted clients in Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Canada, including industry leaders BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata. Scanalyse is negotiating with industry partners, both Australian and international, to set up a global distribution network for its services in all major mining areas.
Other products, which use the same core technology, are being developed in response to industry demand. Scanalyse took the overall Western Australian Inventor of the Year Award in 2007 and was also the winner in
Sensear Pty Ltd
Sensear’s technology enables people to wear hearing protection and clearly hear face-to-face speech communication in very high noise environments ranging from industrial plants to night clubs. Packaged in an ear muff or ear plug format, it solves the problem of people having to remove hearing protection to communicate.
Sensear was launched globally, and with much acclaim, in September 2007 at ‘A+A’, the world’s largest safety trade expo, followed in October by the North American launch in Chicago.
Virtual Observer Pty Ltd
Virtual Observer makes use of images captured by cameras on mobile assets – such as buses or taxis (or, indeed satellites) – in such a way that it can recreate video of activities at any point in space and time covered by those fleets. It does this by stitching together individual frames from a multitude of source cameras. The result is a continuously roaming, wide-area surveillance network that is easily interrogated and analysed. The company has been formed as a joint venture with DTI Group Ltd.
Following a trial using Central Area Transit (CAT) buses around Perth city and a second one at Curtin’s Bentley campus, funding has been secured to conduct a full scale pilot implementation for Perth and to install a system for Curtin.
Glycan Biosciences Pty Ltd
Glycan Biosciences has taken its inspiration from natural products to develop novel pharmaceuticals based on particular sugar (carbohydrate) structures. The company’s unique Biological Analysis and Carbohydrate Chemistry technologies provide the ability to produce new classes of drugs which are user-friendly, effective and provide therapy solutions for a number of diseases currently difficult to treat. A number of therapeutics are currently under development for the respiratory diseases market, the first targets being allergic rhinitis and asthma.
The company recently took its most active compounds into animal models of the targeted diseases and results have been positive. It has also demonstrated that an existing, approved drug is effective against the target diseases, providing a greatly simplified path to market.
TheBuzz Corp Pty Ltd
Years of intensive research at the Western Australian Telecommunications Research Institute (WATRI) have resulted in a new technology that allows for phone calls made over landlines to be channelled via the internet – with or without broadband. This means that cheap, internet-based phone calls will now become an option for everybody, not just for those with a broadband connection.
Despite the broadband roll-out in many markets, the majority of phone calls are made through pre-existing landlines. This massive infrastructure will now be leveraged in a highly effective way, allowing many consumers to lower their call costs in a truly user-friendly manner. TheBuzz was launched in Australia on 27 November 2007 and is currently conducting a pilot operation, building up to 5,000 clients over the first three months.
eXotiX
Conceived and developed by Kurt Smith, a lecturer and researcher in our School of Economics and Finance, eXotiX (formerly Trader Model) is a novel algorithm for accurately pricing exotic options in financial markets. It has distinct competitive advantages over existing models that rely heavily on arbitrary constants and do not provide the trader with an understanding of the market risk and, therefore, how to hedge appropriately.
Exotic options are among the most complex instruments traded in the financial markets; they are a major component of structured products used by hedge funds, portfolio managers and financial planners in wealth creation and by institutions and corporations in hedging exposure to market risk.
The algorithm has been licensed on attractive terms to a leading NASDAQ-listed corporation and has been fully integrated with that company’s flagship product. Beta trials with some of the world’s largest financial institutions are underway in New York, London, Singapore and Tokyo.