NewsBite

Inventors

February

Robyn Denholm, chair of the review of Australia’s R&D system, says over the past 25 years Australia has “slid steeply backwards”.

Australia’s critical slide in R&D is now a national emergency

In a world reshaping through emerging technologies, the nation needs to put innovation at the centre of its competitive DNA to set up its fortunes for decades.

A wander around Beijing’s and Shanghai’s empty shopping malls and half-filled restaurants makes the point.  But in other cities, such as Hangzhou, the home of Alibaba and DeepSeek, a different story is told.

DeepSeek is a sign of China’s structural shift, not decline

Contrary to the narrative that China’s private sector has been squeezed into irrelevance, major developments in new industries are being led by young entrepreneurs.

November 2024

Declan Kluver and Blake Thompson, the co-founders of XRecruiter.

This start-up grew by 2300pc in a year

Blake Thompson, who says he was once a little “off the rails”, and his business partner pulled in revenue growth over 2300 per cent.

July 2024

Craig Wright, the UK-based, Australian-born tech entrepreneur who claims to be bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto.

Aussie who says he invented bitcoin faces UK crime probe

Australian inventor Craig Wright has claimed for a decade that he created bitcoin but now faces perjury allegations in a UK criminal court.

June 2024

Employment Hero co-founder Ben Thompson put the big idea out there on Tuesday.

1pc of your super for venture capital? Add it to the list

Everyone wants a piece of the $3.9 trillion super system and now we can add venture capital. The problem is, it is not the government’s money to redirect.

Advertisement

March 2024

A new study suggests the first ice-free day in the Arctic is likely to occur within 10 years.

Research we’re watching: pancreatic cancer, dementia, Arctic ice

We look at recent research in: pancreatic cancer; three-dimensional processors; an ice-free Arctic; a dementia breakthrough; and a new cash crop for Australia.

February 2024

solar-powered Atmospheric Water Generator 

How one woman’s mission to harvest water from the air is changing lives

Beth Koigi’s 30 solar-powered atmospheric water generators already produce more than 200,000 litres a month for people facing extreme water scarcity in Kenya. Now Rolex has stepped up to help.

January 2024

Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and chief executive of Bumble.

The Silicon Valley founder-CEO is no longer untouchable

As profitability once again becomes a priority, the pendulum is swinging back, at least a little bit, toward the professional CEO.

December 2023

Quasar CEO Phil Ridley is going to America to sell new satellite technology.

Aussie company Quasar joins the global satellite space race

Defence forces and commercial companies are seeking way to improve the tracking of space traffic.

June 2023

“You want to spend more time in the pool than spending time working on your pool,” says former Test bowler Michael Kasprowicz, wh’s just become general manager of Pooled, a subsidiaryof intelliHub that manages the energy needs of backyard pools. He’s pictured in customer’s backyard in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

Former Test quick wants to help you cut your energy bill

For Intellihub – the smart meter company owned by Brookfield and PEP – it’s part of a broad push to ramp up demand management of “behind the meter” resources. 

March 2023

A 3D model of Yorgia, a discoid Ediacaran organism, appears to flutter across an ancient fossil bed.

Up close and personal with the very first life that moved on Earth

The Australian technology studio Sandpit is breathing life into everything from 500-million-year-old fossils to an Adelaide festival show and Shakespeare’s home.

January 2023

VicTrack CEO Campbell Rose remains “on leave” in 2023 but the Victorian government is not explaining why.

VicTrack boss still mysteriously absent

The Victorian government is mum about the future of its top rail agency executive, Campbell Rose, despite the VicTrack boss being “on leave” for most of 2022 amid the failure of a bridge monitoring venture, Eloque.

November 2022

The company set up by the Victorian government to remotely monitor bridges for structural cracks will be liquidated.

Victoria’s failed Eloque venture with Xerox liquidated

Victoria’s $50 million bridge monitoring joint venture, Eloque, will have no cash left to return to taxpayers, corporate filings have confirmed.

October 2022

Campbell Rose, a previous CEO of the Western Bulldogs who subsequently ran VicTrack, is still on leave from the rail agency.

VicTrack writes off shares in failed Eloque joint venture

Some $14 million worth of shares issued by Victoria’s failed $50 million joint venture, Eloque, have been written down to zero as the Andrews government tries to mop up the costs of the collapsed technology experiment.

September 2022

Dan Andrews’ government is being asked to explain why a joint venture with the US’s Xerox collapsed.

Dan Andrews asked to explain Eloque’s ‘funny money’

The sudden collapse of the Victorian government’s $50 million Eloque joint venture with US company Xerox is a ‘a case study in funny money, crooked processes and secrecy’, the state’s Liberal opposition has claimed.

Advertisement
Eloque was set up by the Victorian government and Xerox to remotely monitor the safety of bridges but the joint venture has collapsed 16 months after inception.

Victoria’s Xerox venture ‘burnt through’ taxpayer dollars

The Victorian government will remove sensors from dozens of the state’s bridges after spending $16 million of taxpayers’ money to install them following the collapse of a joint venture with Xerox.

August 2022

A pleated look from Issey Miyake’s autumn-winter 1995 ready to wear collection.

How Issey Miyake inspired Steve Jobs’ signature style

The Japanese designer, who died this month aged 84, was fascinated by technology and innovation. So, too, was the late Apple founder.

Renee Zhang (left), 21, and Jay Tulabing-Lee, 23, both work in startups and love using the social media app BeReal with their friends.

BeReal: the new social media app taking Gen Z by storm

BeReal has been topping the charts for most downloaded free app on Apple’s App Store. 

May 2022

Craig Wright claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s Aussie ‘founder’ on why the crypto pretenders will go bust

Craig Wright has made few friends with his claim to be the currency’s inventor and his $60 trillion courtroom crusade against rivals. So, who is he, really?

April 2022

The radical plan to get tech founders to give away more money

While philanthropy is rising in Australia, it’s not keeping pace with the rise in wealth. Daniel Petre, Antonia Ruffell and Peter Winneke aim to change that.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/inventors-1lys