Farm Tender

Ag Tech Sunday - Tasmania’s Agrivision 2050 goal of a 10 billion dollar agrifood future!

By Laurie Bonney

Innovation and entrepreneurship, incubators and accelerators, and innovation platforms are frequent topics for the media and discussion amongst colleagues or friends. The ratings winning television series ‘Shark Tank’ simulates some of the issues in ideation, entrepreneurship and innovation. Consequently, the Amway Global Enterprise Report shows that 44% Australians have ideas that they think about pursuing “one day” and these often guide us into establishing ‘start-up’ businesses. But how many of us understand and employ a systematic approach to the process of starting a new business? How many of us understand how our business ideas will be evaluated by banks and government agencies? How many of us know that one in three new small businesses in Australia fail in their first year of operation, two out of four by the end of the second year, and three out of four by the fifth year.

Therefore, the ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub, Pathways to Market (PTM) at the University of Tasmania recently conducted highly practical, interactive training in the entrepreneurial process to prepare the six research higher degree students in the program and some other UTAS students for pursuing their careers.

By definition, the Pathways to Market (PTM) is about innovation, and indeed, it was one of the first big data and novel sensing projects applied to whole food chain management anywhere in the world. It aims to transform the Australian food industry by innovatively integrating leading-edge applied research and demonstrating how new insights on food production and consumption generated through novel sensing technologies and advanced modelling techniques can be implemented in smart applications.

As Director of Pathways to Market, I had the privilege to host two of Australia’s leading experts on entrepreneurship and innovation in Hobart to work with a small group of PhD students. Dr Martin Bliemel, Director, Diploma in Innovation, UTS: Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation (FTDI) and Professor Morgan P. Miles is Professor of Entrepreneurship at Charles Sturt University, who has nearly 40 years’ experience in entrepreneurship research in leading US, European and Australian universities as well working both with agencies assisting entrepreneurs implement their ideas as well as those assessing start-up proposals.

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Martin and Morgan's novel workshop methods helped the students develop pitches, design value propositions and develop business plans in a systematic, collaborative, critical yet competitive environment. The students worked through real case studies of success and failure then developed their own ideas using complex problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity and judgement whilst working with others and employing emotional intelligence and negotiation skills. Quite a challenge!

As they progressed, students had the benefit of many real anecdotes of business start-ups from Morgan and Martin. The students also completed periodic assessments through the workshop to track their learning and confidence in their own abilities to undertake a start-up. As with other groups undertaking this training, the students’ confidence in their idea and skills actually dropped during the workshop, a positive outcome because it indicates an increased awareness of the risk, rigor and complexities of starting a new business. However, all participants were much more confident that their new-found knowledge and skills better outfitted them for an innovative future!

On Friday we invited a range of people from Tasmanian government agencies working in innovation and incubators to a lunch-time seminar with Martin and Morgan where some great insights were shared and discussion had over lunch.

Hopefully all of this contributes towards Tasmania’s Agrivision 2050 goal of a 10 billion dollar agrifood future!