Cross pollinating ideas between Australia and New Zealand

Image: L-R: Kyle Langford, Roger Smith, Lee Cale, Sam Newton, Lyn O’Connell, Matt Koval, Chris Cairns after the keynote sessions at the Biosecurity Innovation Exchange.

Article written by Biosecurity Innovation team, Biosecurity Implementation branch

It was innovative thinking that united neighbouring nations at the inaugural Biosecurity Innovation Exchange 2018. Jointly convened with the New Zealand and Australian Governments, the day brought together two biosecurity innovation ecosystems. The two countries started the process of cross pollinating ideas to meet the evolving global biosecurity environment.

The first of its kind, the Exchange focused on innovative technology from the outset with the keynote sessions livestreamed to the department’s YouTube channel. Staying on theme, special guests Kyle Langford and Sam Newton from the Oracle Team USA America’s Cup Sailing team provided an inspiring example of innovation, setting the tone for the day.

‘Through innovation, science and research we can continue to be world leaders in biosecurity – and the best way for us to harness these opportunities is to collaborate with other countries who share our innovative biosecurity vision,’Lyn O’Connell, Deputy Secretary, said in her opening remarks.

Australia and New Zealand are both island nations. This means our environment and challenges are similar. It makes sense to share knowledge and support each other to identify opportunities, leading the future of biosecurity. With technology advancing more in the last thirty years than it did in the previous two thousand, the topics discussed were truly thought provoking.

The Exchange established key themes for immediate investigation:

• gamification and citizen science

• Next Generation Sequencing

• bionic technologies and sensors.

We’ve since held cross divisional workshops, along with our biosecurity colleagues from state and territory governments and New Zealand, on initiatives under gamification, citizen science and Next Generation Sequencing, and plan to facilitate further workshops later this calendar year. These initiatives are just some of the ways we are driving an innovation agenda to support the biosecurity system to work smarter into the future.

It is anticipated that New Zealand will host the next Exchange in 2019 where we will continue to explore innovative technologies and approaches to support biosecurity.