Congratulations to Mark and the entire team, who made METS Ignited such an outstanding success. Creating more than 1000 jobs and $900m of annual revenues across 35 companies from an investment of a little over $16M is exceptional, not to mention building capability through multiple accelerators and masterclasses, and supporting the sector throughout the challenges of COVID. Proud to see many of the organisations who were a part of the Industry Growth Centre continue to deliver value, including CORE Innovation Hub, Australian Automation and Robotics Precinct, Unearthed, Electric Mine Consortium, enviroMETS Qld, Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre just to name a few. Also, a shout out to the Department of Industry, Science and Resources for your support. Job Done!!!
Creating and preserving value through strategic innovation and best practice governance
After more than eight exciting and productive years it’s now time to turn out the lights at METS Ignited Australia Ltd. Late last year we successfully completed the delivery of the Australian Government’s Industry Growth Centre Initiative for the METS sector. The goal of the initiative was to accelerate commercialisation of innovation, build capability, grow exports and address regulatory issues affecting the sector. Over the 8 years we invested over $16 million into 35 collaborative projects, with over 75 Industry partners, attracting more than 2.5 x industry funding. These projects brought 20+ new Australian innovations to market. The companies delivering these projects created over 1,000 new jobs and are projecting additional annual revenues of over $900 million by 2025. In terms of building capability, we trained over 190 companies through more than 20 Industry Accelerators and delivered 55 Masterclasses to more than 920 industry participants. We invested in multiple innovation hubs, precincts, clusters and consortiums to continue legacy. Our programs demonstrated local companies (aggregators/vendors) are the most effective channel to market for products and services created from collaborations between the innovators, researchers and industry partners. They also reinforced the importance of having a clear focus on solving the customers problem first. Working with the government funded Growth Centre was a new experience for me, having come from many years in the commercial world of OEMs and mining services organisations. The lessons learned have been invaluable and I’ll be taking them forward working with the team at enviroMETS Qld with lead research partner CRC TiME, rolling out the enviroMETS Light House Project initiative. More about that in another post! It has been a pleasure working with the likes of Ian Dover, Peter Clarke, Will Alker, Jacqui Coombes, Russell Merz, Kylah Morrison MEM GAICD , Tobie Paulson, Angela Reed, Andrew Scott , Clare Larkin-Sykes, Giancarlo Tosti-Croce, Sergio Zaccaria and many, many others. On to the next chapter!