Recent Presentations

How governments, industry and academia can help build a sustainable future in a technology-dependent world

COMS 2011, 30th August 2011, Greensboro North Carolina, USA

Today’s world is more crowded, more complex, more interdependent and more resource-constrained than at any previous point in human history.  It is a world where economic and social resilience and sustainable growth are more dependent than ever on technology-based solutions, and yet the potential consequences of technology mis-steps are greatly magnified.  Climate change, and associated problems such as energy demand, dwindling resources, water, food, disease all are poised to become defining issues over the next fifty years.  And in each case, the prognosis does not look good on a global scale, unless we can learn to harness the power of micro and nanotechnologies in new ways.

The stakes are high and time is short but technology innovation is not a facile process – the chances of getting the right technology in the right place at the right time can seem as likely as winning the lottery.  But if we want to build a sustainable future, we need to take greater control over this process, and increase the chances of it delivering technologies that fit the problems we need to address, rather than merely those that we can address.  We should also be aware that science and technology can only provide timely and effective solutions if there is early and strategic investment in their development and use, and the triple helix of governments, industry and academic institutions can work together to smooth the path from idea to application.

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Don’t know what Nanotechnology is? Don’t know what it can do for your company?

South East Business Network Industry Breakfast: Friday 7 May 2010, Dandenong, Victoria

Tim will use his vast and diverse experience to case studies demonstrating practical ways in which nanotechnology – and other emerging technologies – can be used in business. He will explore the hurdles, as well as looking at how and why some people got it right and what happened to the ones that went to the wall!

Much of the novelty of nanotechnology appears to have worn off…. which is a good thing for anyone wanting to make use of it! After 10 years and tens of billions of dollars, nanotech is finally making the transition from an ‘interesting bit of science’ to something that can actually be used. The reason? This technology is now mature enough for supply chains to be stable and reliable (you wouldn’t want to start a big development project if your only supplier was a couple of guys in a university lab!).

Today, much of nanotech is invisible – and not just because of its size. A technology is maturing (and therefore usable) when people stop shouting about what it might do and just get on with using it. Obviously, availability, cost and ease of use are also critical. It has already found its way into textiles, paints, adhesives, tyres, furniture, insulation, sporting goods, medical diagnostics, microelectronics and drug treatment – in most cases adding significant value, or opening up new markets.

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Sustainable Nanotechnology (and other emerging technologies)

Cleantech Science and Solutions: – Mainstream and at the Edge: Thursday May 6th 2010, Melbourne, Victoria

Nanotechnologies and Clean Tech may at first seem to be odd bedfellows, but as long ago as 1998 the late Nobel prize winning chemist, Richard Smalley, was advocating the use of nanotechnology to help address the impending population driven energy crisis. In fact nanotechnologies and Clean Tech have even more in common, both have been massively funded by governments around the world, have been over hyped, and have taken rather longer than early investors had imagined to show results.

But sustainability is about more than just energy generation. It encompasses a whole range of other issues, from over dependence on dwindling natural resources to improving public health, and these are areas where our understanding of the properties of materials at the nanoscale can have a major impact.

Cheap point of care diagnostics have the ability to prevent disease thus cutting down treatment costs, lighter stronger composite materials are helping us make better use of the energy technologies we currently use, and new bottom up production techniques are helping us rethink the way we use natural resources.

This combination of nanotechnologies, industrial biotechnology, synthetic biology and a number of other emerging technologies has the potential to create new sustainable industries that will be as significant for the 21^st century as petrochemicals, plastics and semiconductors were to the past century. But who will be the winners and losers, what action should governments take, and what kind of investment opportunities exist?

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