[Image appears of text “CSIRO” in the foreground and a person going downstairs can be seen in the background, and text appears: SME Connect]
[Images move through to show a side view of Simon Hanson talking on a Smartphone, Simon talking to the camera, and then a close view of Simon talking on the phone, and text appears: Simon Hanson, Director, SME Connect – CSIRO]
Simon Hanson: I’m Simon Hanson. I’m the Director of the CSIRO’s SME Connect team and our role is to connect Australian start-ups and SMEs with the research sector.
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We’ve got great businesses in Australia, great researchers.
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The challenge has always been to actually bring them together to do productive collaborations, productive projects.
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Our role is to act as an intermediary between business and research.
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Our facilitators actually sit down with companies and researchers, make sure that they understand each other.
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Researchers have their own language. Businesses have their own language.
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We bring them together to make sure that they’re, they’re aligned and that the project that the research team does meets the businesses priorities.
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We get a lot of really stand out moments. Sometimes it’s the simpler projects that deliver the biggest impact.
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I remember one with Australian Plant Proteins in our Kick-Start programme.
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We helped Australian Plant Proteins work with CSIRO.
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We managed to enhance the, the efficiency of their protein extraction process.
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They built a, a fantastic manufacturing facility in, in Horsham in Victoria worth tens of millions of dollars, and they’ve now gone on to expand that facility.
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And I think it’s a great example of where we can work with a company, work with a research team, to bring about a really high impact outcome.
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We’ve done over 2,000 projects between industry and research over the last several years.
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There’s great opportunities to amplify that, to expand that.
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What it means I think for Australia is it means growing companies, it means exports, it means employment, it means vibrant industries.
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In SME Connect we’ve got a number of programmes and businesses, wherever they are at their journey, we’ve got an offering for them.
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We can help you find the right researcher and we can ensure that the project will meet your business priorities.
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And very importantly, we can get you access to funding to offset the costs of doing the project.
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So, wherever you’re up to in the business journey, we can help you.
[Image changes to show a medium view of Simon talking to a female client, and then the image changes to show the CSIRO logo on a white screen, and text appears: CSIRO, Australia’s National Science Agency]
Who knows where it can take you but we’re confident we can help you get to the next level.