Perth USAsia Centre: Australia and the Indo-Pacific for high school students
- Australia: HarrisonAI gains Au$32M equity investment from Nat’l Reconstruction Fund Corp with AI-based radiology and pathology diagnostics, reading X-rays and CT scans / full item
- Australia: 97MW Hawkesdale Wind Farm, backed by Amazon, enters commercial operation in Victoria, expecting to generate power equivalent to that needed by 67,000 homes annually / full item
- Australia: An intro to Rainstick, agri-tech startup blending Indigenous practices with cutting-edge electrokinetic tech similar to lightning to boost crop growth / full item
- Australia: Spoony raised Au$1M pre-seed funding with social app to help neurodivergent, chronically ill, and disabled individuals, building on graduation from Antler programme / full item
- Australia: Critical Infrastructure Information Sharing & Analysis Centre gains $6.4M in government funding for establishment of new Health Cyber Sharing Network / full item
- Australia: An intro to Earth AI following $20M Series B funding, using geophysical survey data, remote sensing and satellite data, and more, to identify critical mineral deposits / full item
- Australia: Powerhouse has installed a 60 kVA off-grid solar array in the Pilbara region to power a remote EV charger, part of a 7000km network / full item
Also available:
● New Zealand tech in January
● Asia’s Tech News, Weekly >
● Indo-Pacific Insight, Weekly >
- Australia: Convergence Medical secures Au$5M Series A with world-first arthroscopic surgical robot, V01, designed to enhance operative precision and dexterity / full item
- Australia: CSIRO opens applications for latest ‘Innovate to Grow’ program, focusing on SMEs working on recycling and circular economy solutions / full item
- Australia: Here’s a quick intro to 5 First Nations startups working in winemaking, business services, sunscreen and more / full item
- Australia: KPMG Nature Positive Challenge selects Levur for top honours with Levur’s focus on replacing unsustainable plant and animal oils with sustainable alternatives / full item
Invested: Australia’s Southeast Asia Strategy Economic Strategy to 2040
- Geopolitics And Business Sprint with the University of Sydney is set for March 20th to April 3rd – strategies and tools for navigating geopolitical risk, international politics and the global economy / full item
- ICYMI: FundComb’s listing of venture capital Funds headquartered in Australia / full item
- Fire experts around Australia outline some of the latest technologies being trialled or already deployed in the ongoing battle against bushfires / full item
- The Australian Open (AO) has rolled out facial recognition technology for all visitors under a new addition to its conditions of entry’ / full item
- Australia: Royal Automobile Club of Victoria adds ‘virtual power plant’ services to membership offerings, a network of solar batteries connected to operate as a single energy source / full item
- Australia: Utility-scale ‘big battery’ deployment surges past solar and wind but remains far short of requirements / full item
- Australia: Electralith raises $27.5M Series A to further develop sustainable, environmentally-friendly lithium extraction technology / full item
- CES is one of the biggest technology shows in the world, showcasing startups from across the globe. But Australia didn’t have a big presence and that’s a problem. / full item
- Quantum Brilliance, Australian-German firm, raised $20M Series A for portable quantum accelerators, aiming to boost computational power across data centres, robots, satellites and more / full item
- An introduction to 5 of Australia’s high-performance space firms, and the people behind them / full item
- Australia: National Broadband Network project gains an additional Au$3BN, aiming to make the network all-fiber by the end of the decade / full item
GITEX Asia 2025 technology conference – April 23-25 in Singapore
- Australia: Telstra becomes the latest telco to make a major AI play with a global JV with Accenture, committing Au$100M annually over 7 years / full item
- Australian Space Summit & Exhibition 2025 – Aus Space 25 – is set for May 27-28 in Sydney / full item
- Australia: VAWT-X Energy preps for trials of vertical wind turbine, claiming greater efficiency and lower maintenance than traditional turbines / full item
- Australia: AO Ventures, Tennis Australia’s sports-focused VC fund, makes first close at $49M, looking to back around 20 startups / full item
- Australia: A very brief snapshot of the country’s role in SpaceX Starship launches and recoveries / full item
- Australia: Kongsberg-Starsite partnership preps to build a 20-meter antenna in Western Australia, delivering a critical component in Moon mission support / full item
- Australia: Telstra partners SpaceX’s Starlink for sat-to-mobile text messaging, particularly for connectivity in remote and regional areas / full item
- Australian Flow Batteries have demonstrated its diesel replacement system, a mobile, rapidly deployable hybrid power solution featuring a 123m retractable solar array / full item
- Australia: HEX edtech startup partners Toyota Community Trust for ‘Highway to STEM’, offering free career training to 1000 female and non-binary students across Australia / full item
- Australia: INTIX is selected for the Australian Open’s AO StartUps program with its all-in-one sports ticketing management and solutions platform / full item
- …beyond the capabilities of Google Earth, the Soar platform draws on spatial data from… climatic patterns, historical photos and more – and puts it all in one free, open-access and searchable place / full item
- Australia: A look at Kapture, collecting carbon emissions from exhaust fumes and embedding them in concrete, a sustainability win for the emissions-heavy cement industry / full item
- Australia: WearOptimo raises Au$8M with sensor-driven wearable health-tech to monitor hydration levels / full item
- New Zealand’s Road Ninja looks to launch driver employment platform and app into the Australian market, connecting pre-vetted, ready-to-work skilled drivers with businesses / full item
- Singapore: Government reportedly is looking into minimum-age laws for social media use, and is in talks with counterparts in Australia / full item
- Australia: Japan’s Idemitsu Kosan to trial an Australia plantation of non-edible oilseed to assess potential as feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel / full item
- PepsiCo opens applications for 3rd edition of AsiaPac-focused Greenhouse Accelerator Program / full item
Indo-Pacific Insight: Tech, trade, supply, space, geopolitics…
New Zealand tech news: January
- New Zealand: Kwetta raises $16M led by Blackbird VC with energy grid level optimisation focused on electric buses and trucks / full item
- New Zealand’s Road Ninja looks to launch driver employment platform and app into the Australian market, connecting pre-vetted, ready-to-work skilled drivers with businesses / full item
- PepsiCo opens applications for 3rd edition of AsiaPac-focused Greenhouse Accelerator Program / full item
Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (pdf link)
Asia’s tech news, weekly in January
- To January 25th 2025: On LinkedIn & on Substack
- To January 18th 2025: On LinkedIn & on Substack
- To January 11th 2025: On LinkedIn & on Substack
- To January 4th 2025: On LinkedIn & on Substack