• Charles Sturt Innovation Hub's COVID-19 R&D Challenge entrant receives NSW Treasury Local District Innovation grant of $10,000

A Coffs Harbour business participating in the Charles Sturt University Innovation Hub program is the recipient of the NSW Government’s local Innovations District Challenge One grant of $10,000.

The COVID-19 Research and Development Challenge is a collaboration between universities, CSIRO and local businesses. Challenge themes align with the NSW Government ‘Respond, Recover and Reform’ approach to COVID-19, with an investment of $3 million.

Grant recipient Emergisim in Coffs Harbour provides cutting edge virtual reality technology to deliver emergency training scenarios to prepare first responders for worst case scenarios.

Emergisim founder Mr Michael Brewer (pictured) said, “We’re excited that a bunch of paramedics and game developers could actually apply for something like this and be successful.

“A massive shout-out to the Charles Sturt University Innovation Hub team for all their help, it’s just as much their prize as ours.

“We plan to invest the funds into the development of a digital platform that can capture, track and report participant performance against specific learning outcomes within the scenarios.

“This will help individuals and organisations greatly as data captured can provide rigorous, detailed analysis of performance and highlight potential operational issues and training opportunities.”

COVID-19 R&D Challenge One centred around the theme ‘Respond’, for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which have a health or wellbeing innovation that could help reduce the negative impact on the health and wellbeing of people across NSW.

SMEs in regional NSW were quick to step up to the challenge with the Charles Sturt Innovation Hub receiving a strong response.

Charles Sturt Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research, Development and Industry) Professor Heather Cavanagh, said, “We congratulate the Emergisim team at Coffs Harbour who have won the local District Prize to help accelerate the commercialisation of their Virtual Reality First Responder product to address the training disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is great to be able to work with and support emerging businesses and entrepreneurs in our regions, and we wish Emergisim every success in the future”

Acting Manager of the Charles Sturt Innovations Hub Ms Siobhain Howard said, “A huge congratulations to Michael Brewer and his team at Emergisim for this grant in recognition of the impact the business can make to reduce the widespread negative consequences of COVID-19.

“We’re incredibly proud of this outstanding achievement and they are an excellent example of how regional NSW SMEs really are at the cutting edge of innovation.”

This COVID-19 Challenge was one of three challenges, the second of which will be announced shortly.