Iron ore majors BHP, Rio Tinto and Vale have launched a global competition for tech innovators, aimed at developing new concepts to electrify the mining industry's substantial haul truck fleet.
Blue chip mineral sands miner Iluka Resources and small biotech Sun Biomedical are as different as chalk and cheese; but what they share, apart from a Perth base, is a willingness to invest in Western Australia's emerging technology ‘accelerator' programs.
Gekko Systems co-founder Elizabeth Lewis-Gray has been appointed chair of a new 'mining growth centre', which is part of a $189 million federal government initiative designed to encourage commercially-focused research and development activity.
Perth's maturing startup community will soon have its first resources sector focused technology incubator, offering participants seed funding of $70,000.
Difficult to define but becoming impossible to ignore, the Australian METS sector – made up of mining equipment, technology and services companies – has emerged from the mining boom as a leader in