Launch pad for bright sparks

AS  the University of Tasmania aims to make science, technology, engineering and maths a part of everything that happens in Tasmania, a new grassroots organisation is gearing up to harness this growing enthusiasm.

Tom Tasker founder of Unify Design (right) and the business’ first employee Rosie Shield at the Launceston Enterprize innovation centre. Picture: BRUCE MOUNSTER

AS  the University of Tasmania aims to make science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) a part of everything that happens in Tasmania, a new grassroots organisation is gearing up to harness Tasmanian’s growing enthusiasm for STEM, and to turn it into gold.

The university will need about $400 million, of mostly federal government funds, to build its proposed people-friendly STEM precinct on the corner of Argyle and Melville Sts.

It could be argued that Tasmania’s harelike Enterprize movement — a provider of desks, mentoring and networking opportunities for loc­als who want to have a crack at turning their own ideas and acumen into business success — has little in common with the elephantine university system.

Enterprise centres, already established in Hobart and Launceston with donated office space, are running “on the smell of an oily rag”.

Ideas that take flight at the centres could translate into dozens, if not hundreds of economically important small businesses and, perhaps, one or two multi-million dollar local firms.

Hobart start-ups such as Savage Interactive, which has developed a drawing/painting app for Apple’s iPad, and Biteable which markets its “world’s simplest video maker” via its web portal, have already shown that success is possible in Tasmania.

But a local start-up community that tries to emulate the San Francisco Bay Area’s golden touch, would soon run out of puff without the support of large accessible research organisations such as UTAS and CSIRO, warns Stefan Knight.

Mr Knight, who has a handful of successful start-ups under his belt including San Francisco internet equipment company Virata, which raised more than $500,000 in investor capital during the 1990s, said links between the grassroots start-up community and the large institutions would be helpful to keep Tasmania in step with a global economy that was “in transition”.

“It’s important to harness that research and build on that investment,” said Mr Knight, who recently visited the Tasmanian Enterprize Centres as a representative from Telstra’s Muru-D start-up accelerator.

An impression of a space being developed by Launceston start-up firm Unify Design.

Smart, tech-savvy Tasmanians should be able to feed off the state’s STEM capability — including ideas spun off from university research programs and insights gained from their academic journeys — and fuse it with their own ideas to create start-up business opportunities, he said, and such cross-pollination could also enhance many of the state’s existing industries such as agriculture, tourism and Antarctic/marine science support.

But Mr Knight said for Tasmania to keep up with the rest of the world, locals also needed to be proficient at the creation of previously unseen digital tools, services and games that could satisfy global markets, and that was where the Enterprize movement came in.

The Launceston centre has arrived at just the right time for Tom Tasker, managing dir­ector of Unify Design and the firm’s first employee Rosie Shield, who have just begun rolling out a service which, they believe, could take the world by storm.

Mr Tasker said Unify Design aimed to change the way that home buyers and builders dealt with architects, by converting architect’s plans into virtual finished homes.

Clients and builders are able to fly through the homes using virtual reality goggles or computer screens to get a good look at exteriors and interiors, including photographic window views and surrounds, ahead of the contracting, planning approval and construction phases.

Ms Shield, who operates from one of the Launceston Enterprize centre’s desks, has begun creating virtual homes in partnership with local building firm Davies Constructions.

She said the near photographic quality models, with full technical details, could eliminate the countless miss-communications that occurred between clients, builders and architects, and to enable builders to base quotes on highly accurate cost estimates.

Mr Tasker, a virtual reality specialist, said he expected Unify Design to develop into a much bigger business that served customers all around the world.

“Our service uses innovative products to fix the industry’s flaws,’’ he said.

An impression of a finished home developed by Launceston start-up firm Unify Design.

Jason Imms, Hobart Enterprize’s community manager, and Launceston counterpart James Riggall said they aimed to foster a single highly connected community of Tasmanians, who enjoyed playing around, creating things, and “to just celebrate the wonderful things that are happening” around them. Mr Imms said there were already plenty of Tasmanians with a penchant for ideas and tinkering, but too many of those ideas had died from lack of support.

“The spontaneous creative ideation process, its fun ... but then it becomes work,” he said.

Mr Imms said by adding successful, experienced business talent to the mix through workshops, mentoring, and by embedding successful start-ups such as Giant Margarita, creator of the Sony PlayStation game Party Golf in the centres, they aimed to convert more of those ideas into career paths and economic growth.

“To turn it into a viable business, that is self-sustaining,’’ he said. “The doors are open, come and check it out.’’

Mr Knight said cities such as Hobart and Launceston had a key advantage — their smallness made it easy for people with a wide variety of expertise and points of view to keep bumping into each other and talking.

“People want to help each other ... there’s a sense of the greater good,’’ he said.

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Originally published as Launch pad for bright sparks