Just a quick summary and a few impressions from the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Center (AMGC) event ‘Advanced Manufacturing in 2019 and access to capital’ at University of Technology Sydney this Tuesday. Speakers and topics varied a lot and were not all about finance…
Credit: Twitter @AnnaParadowsk
After the welcoming words by Michael Sharpe, AMGC and Mr. Michael Blumenstein from UTS the about 80 attendees learned from a range of speakers of the NSW State Government about funding options and grant programs by the NSW State Government. But the presentations weren’t all just about finance. Solange Cunin (CSIRO Project Director of the STEM Workforce Development) explained how CSIRO is promoting STEM subjects and encourages students to work placements to grow the right skills and interests to ensure a skilled future workforce. https://www.csiro.au/en/Education/Programs/Generation-STE
David Hoffmann (Project Officer from the NSW Department of Environment and Heritage) was presenting on an AUD 16M grant program for business to invest in energy saving upgrades and measurements. https://energysaver.nsw.gov.au/business/discounts-and-incentives/manufacturing-efficiency-funding
Hervé Havard, Director of UTS Rapido and UTS ProtoSpace, explained how Rapido is helping the industry to overcome the Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) 5 & 6, aka ‘The Valley of Death”. The key is interdisciplinary research and engineering collaborating with industry.
UTS Rapido
Kelvin Wee,APAC Sales Director at Materialise, presented on ‘Meaningful applications of 3D Printing’. Explaining the key to success in 3D Printing, aka Additive Manufacturing, is ‘Design for Additive Manufacturing’ (DfAM). With the example of implementing 3DP/AM into the production line of life boats Kelvin highlighted how part-consolidation and function integration and enabling overall cost savings in production. But Kelvin pointed out his presentation were more about spending rather than accessing capital.
Source: Materialise
Alex Kingsbury from Additive Economics shared her insights on what difficulties Australian businesses in Additive Manufacturing are facing to get finance for high-tech equipment. But also pointing out which Australian businesses in AM have successfully sourced capital. Highlighting the example of Geelong based CONFLUX Technology which got backed by the German AM Ventures Holding GmbH.
The presentations on finance ranged from venture capital to government grants and funding opportunities.
Michael Reznikov from Finance for Australian Exports (Efic) explained how companies can get loans through Efic to grow their export business. https://www.efic.gov.au/
A tour followed the presentations, visiting the UTS robotics and automation labs (Caslab #1 & #2 as the Techlab). After lunch, a round table session was offered for the people from the industry to engage with the speakers.
Learn more about the AMGC: https://www.amgc.org.au/ See also our events calendar : https://consult3d.com/additive-manufacturing/events/ Stay tuned and follow CONSULT3D.COM on Twitter