• Charles Sturt Innovation Hubs’ COVID-19 R&D Challenge entrant Mr Hamish Munro won a local District Innovation Partner grant of $10,000
• Based in Orange NSW, his startup business Pairtree Intelligence produces online ‘dashboards’ that centralise a farm’s operational and supply chain data sets
• Pairtree will better equip farmers to respond to disasters by being able to make quick, reliable and repeatable decisions

A startup business supported by the Charles Sturt University Innovation Hubs has won a $10,000 grant by competing in a NSW Government innovation challenge.

The NSW Treasury Innovation Districts Challenges are designed to accelerate the commercialisation of research products that address the impacts of COVID-19 by businesses in partnership with universities and the CSIRO in NSW.

Winners of the NSW Treasury Innovation Districts COVID-19 Research and Development (R&D) Challenge Two have been announced. There are three challenges in all.

The Charles Sturt Innovation Hubs’ COVID-19 R&D Challenge entrant Mr Hamish Munro (pictured) won a local District Innovation Partner grant of $10,000.

Mr Munro is a co-founder of the startup business Pairtree Intelligence, based in Orange NSW, producing an online app or ‘dashboard’ that centralises data sets from across a farm’s operation and supply chain.

“Winning this prize is a fantastic boost to Pairtree,” Mr Munro said.

“Pairtree is a web app which creates farmer-friendly dashboards that connect to any information source that affects farmers’ operations, creating a ‘Universal Dashboard’ or ‘Your office in your top pocket’.”

The app connects all the information and services a farmer needs to run their operation into one single digital place rather than having to log on to several applications and websites.

“The grant money will give us the opportunity to contract a software developer to develop the Pairtree Information Exchange (PIE),” Mr Munro said.

“This ‘digital handshake’ is critically important for Pairtree, allowing data to be shared quickly.

“PIE will streamline the issue of ‘on-farm data silos’ making the ‘solution’ mix of integrations and connections easier for farmers to view all of their information in one spot.

“With Pairtree, farmers are better equipped to respond to disasters by being able to make quick, reliable and repeatable decisions.”

COVID-19 Research and Development Challenge Two centred around the theme ‘Recover, for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that have an economic innovation that could help reduce the negative impact on the economy across NSW’.

Startups in regional NSW were quick to rise to the challenge, with the Charles Sturt Innovation Hubs receiving a strong response and Pairtree winning the local District prize.

Charles Sturt Acting Pro Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation, Associate Professor Jason White, congratulated Mr Munro.

“We extend our warmest congratulations to Local District winner, Hamish Munro, and to all applicants of the COVID Challenge Two,” Professor White said.

“We are seeing some incredible agritech startups coming through regional NSW and we’re very proud of the innovators who stepped up to this important challenge with solutions to build resilience.

“Increasing the capacity of our farmers is critical to Australia as we face increasingly uncertain times, so it’s unsurprising to us that Pairtree stands among the best. 

“It is a privilege for us to work with some of the brightest innovators in the region and we wish Pairtree every success in the future”.

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

The NSW Government seeks to identify businesses that intend to accelerate the commercialisation of research products that address the many disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

To achieve this, the government is partnering with universities and the CSIRO in NSW to find solutions to a series of challenges.

Challenge themes align with the NSW Government ‘Respond, Recover and Reform’ approach to COVID-19.

The total funding pool available for each Challenge round is $500,000, with the funding award:

• Highest ranked applicant $250,000
• Second-highest ranked applicant $100,000
• Third-highest ranked applicant $30,000
• Highest ranked applicant in each Innovation District that is not one of the state-wide overall recipients will be granted $10,000, as determined by the evaluation panel.

Twelve partner institutions have joined the NSW Treasury-led Innovation Districts COVID-19 R&D Challenge, including 11 of the universities in NSW and CSIRO which form the Boosting Business Innovation Program network.

The COVID-19 R&D Challenge is a joint initiative with Charles Sturt University Innovation Hubs and the NSW Government’s Boosting Business Innovation Program (BBIP) with an investment of $3 million.

Further information can be found at the NSW Treasury Innovation Districts COVID-19 R&D Challenges website.

Follow Charles Sturt Innovations Hubs’ social media:

http://innovate.csu.edu.au/incubators/agritech

facebook.com/AgriTechIncubator/

twitter.com/AgriTechCSU