Moonshot Nation Building

[2019-10-03 Thu 15:43] Bruce notes:

The four key goals that I heard as being important were:

1. virtual incubators, aka “Dunning Kruger” network building,
2. “$500” certification service for qualifying export focused hardware business,
3. activating un/under utilised capex in the Universities and CSIRO for the benefit of the target ecosystem,
4. engagement with NSW to co-develop a funded pathway forward to start.

Oh, and we need to come up with a name for all this :)

[2019-10-03 Thu 16:13] Katie notes:

1. Katie and Bruce to compare notes and circulate
2. Meet in 2-3 weeks to set clear vision for group and prepare to being NSW Govt discussions
3. Meet at SSH to begin this conversation.

Set context of NSW govt (Treasury) priorities

• Requested a proposal/pitch to take to Minister or Premier of what needs to be done differently (Problem, Opportunity/Solution, Govt involvement)
• Economic impact needs to be shown
• Not necessarily new businesses/start-ups but making big economic impact
• Easy to link into BBIP program objectives
• Need to fit in with thinking around Tech Precinct, Aerotropolis and SSH.

Three areas are areas of opportunity (Bruce):

• Reduce cost of certification – Eliminate barriers
• Design for Manufacture – focus here earlier, reduces costs and allows for automation
• Open up access to existing resources (Universities, CSIRO, ENCRIS, MCIC) – Leverage existing skills

What does this group look like and what do we do?

• Meet regularly to prepare proposal for NSW Govt.
• Create a coalition of resources – e.g. industrial designers, electronics engineers, mechanical design
• Idea - Create a manufacturing hub
• Support ‘BAU’ innovation – how do you innovate, evolve within an existing business
• Help de-risk investment of others
• Need to consider funding/business models
• Idea – Government funded mentor program
• Idea - Establish a Hardware Incubator (ala HAX)

Robust discussion on certification

• Idea – Establish a mechanism to enable ~$500 certification
• Ideas - How to build a certifiable product (education piece) and pre-certification as a service
• Barrier currently is cost ($15k)
• Export focus
• Look to meet the global comparative cost of this service e.g. in EU and US
• Current places for certification (Frenches Forest, 1 x Melbourne based)
• DFM is also designed for certification and test

Value of Network

• Low friction deals
• Expectation and relationship are built
• Need to build a trust network
• Define what a low friction deal looks like and both parties deliver to expectations
• Lowers risk, pre-vetting
• Gets things done

What else is needed:

• Existing resources both physical and Intellectual can be better leveraged
• Need to show credibility of market opportunity
• Shift in culture/mindset (beyond initial scope here!)
• Scale of market
• Shift in investor architype (engineers with exits, experts who put skin in the game) away from VC, conventional follower investors
• New business models for incubator – beyond real estate play

On the positive side

Australia is welcome to global markets (so tech credible)

Market opportunity/commercial reality of ideas

• Uncertain market size = low production runs = high risk or high cost
• Idea - Can government act or stimulate and artificial initial customer base
• Taiwan/China take a risk on low volume initial runs, see potential of future

Eric’s Eco-system input (consider how we fit in)

• OZ Hard group
• Francisco’s Bible
• Sneepo Research (Surry Hills)
• Hardware Club
• Hardware Massive
• Innovation Drive

Tim’s Updates

• Working across media, med-tech and space industries in hardware
• Space has identified the need for space agency, spin-ins and focal political event (e.g. NASA deal)
• Eco-system includes – corporates, spin-ins and start-ups
• Blockers for space industry – certification, flight history (launched and adding value), architecture of production
• Proposal for First Flight - 8 “robots” to ISS, building a coalition , ISS investment fund being leveraged
• Happy to use First Flight as an anchor project to “SME” working group

Existing people/resources mentioned:

• Dean Cooper (North Ryde?)
• Braham – Testing Shed
• Neura
• pH meter – Denistone
• MELT
• SOS Ventures
• ARC – Brisbane and Melbourne

On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 9:49 AM Glenn Dickins <g@dickins.com> wrote:

I’m thinking of putting in a grant application in the Manufavtiring Advancement thing (closes end of next month). Spend and offset on

• more printers, possibly slightly higher spec
• energy offset (reposit power)
• sustainability assessment and consult
• online portal for scaling to community based
• play testing idea of teenager / mumpreneur / airtasker for expertise (roll change, setup, service and tool path (slicing) expert targeting the approach)

Targeting a 2x cost reduction against industrialised print farms.

On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 at 7:07 pm, Bruce Tulloch <bruce@bitscope.com> wrote:

I’m beginning see a new BitScope business proposition coming on here :) I do like the idea of being able to batch printers (with cameras that can view progress and sense stuff ups) all accessible from a desktop or phone application without dependence on a cloud provider (or 24x7 NBN!) each run via their own Pi server as a “cottage industry scale advanced manufacturing solution”.

On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 at 6:42 pm, Norman Jackson <norman@bitscope.com> wrote:

This must be a well understood process. Just take the US as a reference. Most of the really expensive research was done by govt or big companies like Bell that might as well have been govt. NASA and the military accelerated lots of expensive research that would not have passed the economically rational commercial bean counters. AT&T had endless money from their telco monopoly. Military contracts would have provided the funds to set up very expensive plant that later got used to support the national tech base. Apollo probably got the US to the 6502 - MOSTEK was a spinoff of Motorola and Fairchild, which were major suppliers to the space program. Considering how much the US computer industry came to be worth, I would say the US govt got a very positive ROI on the moon landings. It may also be an inconvenient truth that WW2 set the US up for success! None of any of that would make sense on a business plan.

Here we have done the opposite - dismantled our production capabilities, imported our defense equipment rather than build it, and spurned any type of big picture national projects (last one might have been the Snowy). Worse, we have embraced the nihilistic ideologies of the Financial Sector and their disingenuous, corrupted beliefs in market forces. I don't think any country has achieved greatness purely on economic rationalism. It is also interesting that the USSR also failed despite being unencumbered by economic rationalism, so it is a Goldilocks formula that is required.

So, if you want to understand what the problems are, here is an idea. Initiate a national program for Australia to put a rover on the Moon or Mars with a budget of, say, $1Bn. Restricted to small companies and individuals. $1Bn is actually 10,000 man years costed at $100K per person, so if you can avoid the inefficiencies of rorts like the NBN project, then you could probably get a lot done. Most likely this proposal would be ridiculed, but even so, if you record and collate all the objections and roadblocks, you will end up with a very accurate map of what the problems are.

Back in 2008 we "solved" the GFC with pink batts and a $900 handout, so why is 1bn for a tech program such an outrageous amount? Think about that. What did Ken Henry say to Rudd? "Go hard, go early, go households" - and that was really to save the Banks. The idea that you can inject money to stimulate the economy is acceptable when it suits them. The prejudice against things like space programs or national builder programs is just a failure of imagination that we have let our politicians get away with for too long.

On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 1:50 PM Bruce Tulloch <bruce@bitscope.com> wrote:

​ We are at a ripe moment to help formulate New South Wales government policy. A key element to this is better coordination with the feds through AMGC and their programs and the university and research sector and theirs.

There’a a prime opportunity to focus on development of the existing SME sector (as opposed to large corporates at the one end or start-ups or early stage scaleups at the other) starting in Sydney with a focus on hardware and advance manufacture.

This will align with the NSW government’s KPIs around business and industry growth and jobs creation. It also aligns with the innovation and research piece through the universities and CSIRO and the entrepreneurial piece around LINs, incubator and start-up support which is better handled through federal channels combined with private partnerships and investment.

In a sense the state government acts as handmaiden to facilitate these larger programs by creating a fertile ecosystem in which the existing businesses can grow rapidly. Combined with the resources the universities and CSIRO can bring and it could become an ecosystem that would encourage business to seriously consider onshoring.

Think “Shenzhen writ small in Western Sydney”. The federal government’s focus on “moonshot programs” and the increasing business risk associated with trade and China provide further political impetus for these changes.

On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 3:00 AM Bruce Tulloch <bruce@bitscope.com> wrote:

Hi all, currently in the UK meeting with Raspberry Pi, Sony and AVNet/Farnell learning how Raspberry Pi have on-shored all their manufacturing to Sony in Wales producing about 180,000 units a week at a cost that is cheaper than the best China could do. Very interesting. Automation of production and DFM for testing is a key takeaway. It ties in with this new fund created by the federal government to assist local manufacturers to modernise their operations:

https://www.grants.gov.au/?event=public.GO.show&GOUUID=BC6C12DC-FA9D-F989-84CDA32D58EB45AC