The 4th quarter 2022 collection of key Australian technology news headlines, gathered across October, November and December of 2022.
Q4 tech news headlines in Australia covered items including undersea cabling’s cyber risks, plastic recycling, opportunities for Australia in batteries and energy storage, challenges for Australia’s buy-now-pay-later fintech industry, and many more. Hit the links below to read each article in full online.
December 2022 | November 2022 | October 2022
Tending Australia’s tech ecosystem: Who should be the regulator(s)?
December 2022: Australia
- Australia: Uber launches Uber Carshare platform following acquisition of Car Next Door, aiming to help ‘operate Australia more efficiently with less cars’
- Australia: Dep’t of Home Affairs, ASIO and ASD now scrutinising use of Hikvision and Dahua surveillance cameras, citing similar security concerns raised in recent UK and US bans
- Australia: Ettle blockchain-driven fintech sets sights on introducing an Australian dollar stablecoin for business in 2023, using the digital Australian dollar token AUDE
“The guidelines emphasise the economic and eco-promise of a drone-filled future. A projected A$14.5 billion added to Australia’s GDP and 10,000 jobs over the next 20 years is undeniably attractive. But does the evidence add up to this rosy vision?”
- Western Australia Innovation Strategy is now available to download, outlining the state’s 10-year plan to establish WA as a global hub of invention, investment, innovation and impact
- Australia: University of Queensland unveils 12 startups selected for 2023 Ventures ilab Accelerator, working in retail-tech, augmented reality, carbon capture and more
- Australia: An overview of proposed Australia-wide drone deliveries, and the issues this raises
Australia: Battery industry opportunities in Queensland
- Australia: Consumer watchdog to pay Google’s legal costs following court dismissal of claim that Google deceived or misled users about use of their data
- Australia: A look at Avarni, aggregating supply chain and spending data into a comprehensive dataset and using AI to help clients report and forecast their carbon footprint
- Australia and Vanuatu ink wide-angle security agreement, spanning defense, cybersecurity, humanitarian support and more, in the wake of Vanuatu hack
- Australia & TikTok: “…Chinese law stipulates that domestic organisations must ‘support, assist and co-operate with the state intelligence work’
TikTok: “The hugely popular app is known for its short viral videos and boasts 100 million users in the United States and seven million in Australia.”
- Australia: CSIRO ON Accelerate program unveils 10 deep-tech startups selected from Australia’s universities and researchers, working in biotech, IoT, nutrition and more
- Australia: SmartCompany’s pick of 10 startups to watch in 2023
- Australia’s 5B lands BP funding with rapid-deployment solar panel farms capable of covering the size of a soccer pitch in a single day
- Australia’s Heal Partners investment firm focused on health care, education and lifestyle sectors, closes first fund at $143M and launches $350-500M second fund
- India: Ola CEO blog calls for alternate supply chain to curb the country’s increasing dependence on China for lithium, proposing partnerships with Australia, Chile, Argentina and others
November 2022: Australia
2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent
- Australia: New security number to be introduced for all Victorian driver licences after recent cyber-attacks, with near 1 million to be reissued
- Australia’s Blackbird VC firm unveils huge Au$1BN fund, aiming to back emerging startups in Australia and New Zealand
- Australia: Fishburners startup community unveils 10 startups selected for the first cohort of the Google News Initiative Startups Boot Camp
- Following Countering Ransomware Initiative summit, Australia to convene Int’l Counter Ransomware Task Force in 2023, seeking intelligence-sharing and coordination of enforcement and cyber agencies
“The company plans to build its first plastic recycling facility before the end of 2022. In 2023, it’s hoping to get started on large-scale production, and, from 2024, the startup wants to recycle 20,000 tonnes of plastic per year.”
- Australia: Samsara Eco raises $54M with ‘infinite recycling’ tech that breaks plastic down to core molecules, allowing it to be reused repeatedly and more efficiently than current methods
- “Hundreds of undersea cables link up the worldwide web, with about a dozen connected to Australia. How does this little-known network work – and what happens if it’s sabotaged?”
- Australia: EVX partners UK’s Connected Kerb to instal 1000 kerbside chargers out to 2024, designed for ‘long-dwell’ charging of at least 1-2 hours
- Australia: Following spate of cyber-attacks, Cyber Security Minister flags a range of reforms to protect personal data, including making it illegal to pay ransoms demanded by hackers
- Australia & semiconductors: “…policymakers must treat semiconductors as a vital public good, almost on par with other basic necessities such as food and water supplies and reliable electricity…”
“First, it must embark on an epic technology-transfer initiative. To be successful, Australia must attract and absorb leading-edge technology, human capital (talent) and investment through a range of strategic partnerships with world-class companies, universities and friendly governments.”
- AWS has announced the AWS Healthcare Accelerator Aged Care and Digital Health cohort in Australia and New Zealand to drive innovation that improves the delivery of services offered by aged care providers and in turn those in their care
- Australia: Telstra gov’t-backed bid to purchase Digicel Pacific gains credit guarantees from US Int’l Development Finance Corp and Japan Bank for Int’l Cooperation
- Australia: The Smith Family charity becomes the latest cyber-attack victim with near 80K donor details potentially exposed
- Australia’s Place In The Semiconductor World’, a 4-part examination of the challenges, opportunities and risks for the country in advanced chip manufacturing
- Tennis Australia unveils AO StartUps, aiming to provide startups with the opportunity to prove business models and test-run in real time through exposure at the Australian Open
- Australia: Booming buy now, pay later – BNPL – sector faces crackdown, with government inviting discussion of 3 reform options
- Australia: Senate votes to establish a new ‘foreign interference through social media’ inquiry amid growing scrutiny of major tech platforms, citing ‘risk posed to Australia’s democracy’
- Australia: Touch-responsive material unveiled, a fraction of the thickness of current ‘phone screens and likely to feature in next-gen mobile devices, capable of being manufactured ‘like a printed newspaper’
“At least 12 million Australians have had their data exposed by hackers in recent months.”
- Australia: “…newly identified information confirms the high-profile hacks of Medibank and Optus represent just a fraction of the confidential Australian records recently stolen by cyber criminals…”
- Fiji: “A lawyer who made light of a legal document’s error [in a Facebook post] was convicted of contempt of court, in a sign of the island nation’s eroding civil liberties…”
- Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu is building a digital replica of itself in the metaverse, seeking to preserve its history and culture in the face of rising sea levels
- Office of the Vanuatu Gov’t CIO confirms Broadband Network compromised in cyber-attack, impacting email, VOIP services and more
“A statement from the OGCIO relayed that as a result all the online services such as email, network shares, VoIP services and other government online services offered by the government are currently down. This has paralysed all government ministries and department.”
- Australian Cybersecurity Centre steps in to assist Vanuatu government in rebuilding entire IT system following cyber attack and ransom demand
- Asia’s tech news weekly, Nov 1st: NFTs as property in Singapore; Australia’s hacking woes continue; Taiwan’s battery-swapping in India; rice decarbonisation in Asia; Huawei faces Ireland ban; Korean VC looks to Vietnam; Vanuatu takes cashless steps…
- Australian Cybersecurity Centre steps in to assist Vanuatu government in rebuilding entire IT system following cyber attack and ransom demand
Critical Minerals: Global supply chains and Indo-Pacific geopolitics
October 2022: Australia
Australian Cyber Security Centre Threats Report 2022
- The race is on to build Australia’s first 3D-printed house…Dubbo councillor Matthew Wright is leading the push for a trial of four 3D-printed houses in coming months’
- AUKUS & tech: “Web3…and the technologies that enable it…are developing systems that are increasingly decentralised, permissionless and not reliant on governments and organisations to facilitate trust.”
- Australia: Amazon Web Services launches ‘Prove What’s Possible’ campaign, showcasing the resilience of Australia’s tech startups
- Australia’s Southern Launch inks data sharing agreement with US Space Command to provide Southern hemisphere de-orbit, re-entry and end-of-life de-orbit support in reducing space debris
- Australia: Woolworths supermarket giant’s MyDeal unit suffers data breach, exposing details of 2.2M customer
- She Loves Tech Australia Pitch Final takes place in Melbourne on Thursday 20th October, with 10 women-led tech startups set to present
AUKUS and Australia’s tech ecosystem / US Studies Centre
- Australia: CoinSpot crypto exchange launches cryptocurrency-backed digital-only CoinSpot Mastercard
- Australia: EnergyLab Start-Up Showcase took place on October 27, featuring Aus and NZ’s upcoming clean energy startups and including a session on opportunities presented by lithium batteries
- Australia’s Optus data breach: “Equally important is to strengthen obligations for organisations to publicly disclose data breaches. Optus made a public announcement…but was not legally required to do so.”
- “If Australia hopes to be a trusted member of its regional community it must make long-term investments in teaching and learning Asian languages…”
- Australia: Mark your calendar – evokeAG 2023 set for 21-22 February 2023 in Adelaide, bringing together the best and brightest to talk about global agri-food innovation and agri-tech
Western Australia Dealroom
- Australia: MediBank, country’s largest private health insurer, had 200GB of data stolen in hack, including customer medical service location, and codes relating to diagnosis and procedures
- Australia’s MediBank hack: “…begun when a person with high-level access within Medibank’s systems had their credentials stolen by a hacker, who then put them up for sale on a Russian-language cybercrime forum…”
- Australia: Silentium Defence unveils ‘space observatory in a box’ to track Low Earth Orbit objects in quickly deployable system which emits no radio waves
- Australia: In the wake of high-profile MediBank and Optus hacks, identity theft victims share their experiences of having personal information stolen and used
- Australia’s hacking woes continue with Australian Clinical Labs pathology firm revealing cyber-attack from 8 months ago, resulting in data of 223K people stolen, some posted to the dark web
- Australian Strategic Policy Institute and India’s Centre for Internet and Society unveil project focused on ‘techdiplomacy’ and standards settings in Artificial Intelligence in the Indo-Pacific
Framing A Transatlantic Technology Strategy / CNAS
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