Innovating until the cows come home

From wave-powered aquaculture to an AI-powered badminton coach, the 2024 Velocity $100k Challenge saw a diverse range of ideas secure a share of $100,000.

The annual challenge, run by the Business School’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at the University of Auckland, has helped start-ups find success on a global stage. This year, a cutting-edge agritech solution designed to benefit the health of cows took out first place and a supersized cheque worth $25,000.

Liggins Institute research technician Liz Cunningham and her teammates, academic staff from the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, Faculty of Engineering and the Liggins Institute, say their start-up, QuickMas, is about helping in the fight against antibiotic resistance in dairy cattle.

Cunningham, who has worked in the dairy industry, has a personal connection to the problem having lost cows to mastitis, a costly disease that sees udder tissue become inflamed, often due to bacteria.

She also works at the University’s Ngapouri Research Farm, which has facilitated world-class research and collaboration with scientists, academics and commercial partners.

Cunningham says QuickMas will show whether a cow has mastitis, help identify the pathogen causing it and determine whether the cow has responded to antibiotics. QuickMas will also be able to help farmers decide if their cow is safe to put back in the herd or if she may still be harbouring infectious bacteria.

“It will give dairy farmers answers about their cows’ mastitis in as little as 15 minutes and no more than an hour.”

The on-farm diagnostic tool, Cunningham says, is as simple as a Covid test, doesn’t require Wi-Fi, and farmers can self-interpret the results - no need to send them to a vet.

“It’s done using a milk sample, which is processed by our machine for five minutes before it’s added to our test cartridges. Farmers will then be able to identify the source of infection in as little as 10 minutes – or a maximum of 60 minutes for low levels of infection.

“The current testing method on the market sees farmers have to wait at least 24 hours for a result. It also requires Wi-Fi, which a lot of milking sheds don’t have.”

Cunningham and her team are currently testing QuickMas prototypes.

“We worked really hard to develop something quick, reliable and fit for farms. We want QuickMas to add value to farmers’ businesses here and all over the world.

“Winning the Velocity challenge is amazing, and we’re excited to use the support provided to get this to market as quickly as we can to help dairy farmers and their cows.”

Cunningham says the QuickMas team will explore potential partnerships and seek external investment over the next six months, with the plan to have the product on the market in 2025.

“Using QuickMas will help the dairy industry in its fight against antibiotic resistance. Helping farmers understand the correct pathogen will enable them to treat their cows more efficiently. It will also inform treatment duration.

"Farmers will have the information to give each cow individualised and responsive treatment – undertreating or overtreating with antibiotics will be a thing of the past.”
 

Second place in the Velocity Challenge and a $15,000 prize went to the team behind ROSS, an AI-powered troubleshooting platform designed for the food and beverage manufacturing industry.

The platform enables engineers to efficiently resolve equipment breakdowns by accessing a global knowledge base, improving knowledge sharing, reducing downtime, and cutting operational costs without disrupting existing workflows.

Four other ventures tied for third, with each awarded $5,000 seed capital. There were:

MoveInsight: An AI-powered badminton training app providing real-time motion analysis, personalised feedback and equipment recommendations. It helps badminton enthusiasts maintain consistent training quality and supports self-directed training. By using wearable devices and video, the app enhances skills, prevents injuries, and fills the gap in accessible sports technology worldwide.

Align: An AI digital tool designed for GPs. Using Gen-AI, it talks to the patient to gather information and produce a summary of the patient’s expectations and concerns for the consult, as well as a visualised summary of symptoms - enabling GPs to make the most of consultation time.

Harnessing Ocean Wave Energy for Sustainable Aquafarming: Aquaculture is a rapidly growing industry in New Zealand and globally, but clean energy supplies are lacking. The team propose using wave energy to provide small-scale power to aquafarms, enabling innovative and efficiency-increasing practices. Their ocean-tested wave energy converter offers a scalable and reliable solution for aquafarms.

RAPIDOSE: Despite medical advancements, clinicians still need to perform complex weight-based dosing during paediatric resuscitations, which can be prone to errors at a critical time. A study found three in 10 children were overdosed. RAPIDOSE offers a simple, effective solution to reduce errors, revolutionising paediatric emergency care and enhancing safety for clinicians and patients globally.

Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) director Darsel Keane says all the start-up ideas and initiatives in the competition are immensely impressive and seek to tackle real-world issues.

“CIE is a launchpad. It’s a place where students and staff can come together to explore, experiment, create, launch and grow. We provide the university community with the opportunity to create value and stand out. We prepare them for innovative careers and help them launch and grow their ventures.”

On top of their cheques, all the winners will also benefit from a place in the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s incubator Venture Lab.

The six-month programme provides a unique opportunity for the teams to advance their start-up ideas, offering mentorship from industry leaders, meetings with entrepreneurial legends, free desk space, a stipend, and a paid student intern.

21 years of innovation

The Velocity $100k award winners were announced at a sold-out celebration event on 16 October for the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, marking 21 years of its existence.

At the event, Vice-Chancellor Professor Dawn Freshwater said the University’s culture of innovation and entrepreneurship is strong.

“Curiosity and imagination have never been more important in the context of innovation. That spark that started in 2003 was a spark of curiosity.

“Twenty-one years later, we have a thriving entrepreneurial system, including the Centre of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, UniServices, which has $40 million of investment start-up funds, Medtech-iQ and our Newmarket precinct, which connects industry with university research and technical enterprise.”

She was happy to report that the CIE celebration night was occurring the same day as the news was announced that the University has been ranked most active start-up and spin-out company in Australasia, in the Survey of Commercialisation Outcomes from Public Research.

With 47 active start-ups and spin-outs from 2021-2023, the University placed ahead of the University of Queensland and Australia’s highly respected Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).