Massey University AgriFood Digital Lab director professor Andrew East says the partnership with NZ Project Accelerator is an opportunity for Massey to lead the way in areas such as sensing and automation.
The NZ farming technology sector has received a double boost with a new agritech hub being formed in Palmerston North, while high profile innovator Sir Ian Taylor is also coming on board.
The new hub is the result of a partnership between Massey University’s AgriFood Digital Lab (MAFDL) and the NZ Product Accelerator.
Located on the city’s AgResearch campus, it will support companies and research to accelerate commercial opportunities into local and international markets.
The Product Accelerator is a government-funded programme that helps companies accelerate product development through connecting industries with technology teams from its network across the R&D community.
The programme has just announced that Sir Ian Taylor is the new chair of its advisory board.
Taylor is founder and managing director of Animation Research Ltd, a world-leading computer graphics company whose Virtual Eye technology provides real-time sports graphics for online streaming services, television and large screen broadcasts, including live-to-air golf coverage, Major League Baseball, cricket, motorsport and sailing.
He said the Project Accelerator is an example of an organisation working quietly beneath the radar, bringing value to NZ businesses through a focus on science, engineering and technology, and the role it can play in NZ’s future.
AgriFood Digital Lab director professor Andrew East is delighted the university is partnering with the Project Accelerator to form the hub.
East sees the hub as a natural extension of the MAFDL’s capability and an opportunity for Massey to lead the way in areas such as sensing and automation.
He said one of the facility’s leaders, Professor Johan Potgieter, is a founding member of the Product Accelerator and has made significant contributions to, and benefited from, the collaboration and its connections, with many of the commercial projects undertaken by MAFDL coming from its collaborative model.
MAFDL is an industry-focused research centre that focuses on developing agritech solutions to overcome challenges across a number of industries.
Its research spectrum includes horticulture, precision agriculture, robotics, advanced materials and biotechnology.
Project Accelerator’s core team is based at the University of Auckland’s Newmarket campus, however, Massey has been involved from its establishment.
Its co-director, Associate Professor Mark Jones, said Massey’s contribution has played a key role in its success and forming another hub in Palmerston North formalises the relationship.
“This new hub will facilitate easier access to our New Zealand-wide network for companies in the central North Island,” Jones said.
“We have another hub being established at Victoria University later this year and we are in discussions with some of our other partners for similar hubs throughout New Zealand.
“These hubs will play a major role in creating a more collaborative and expanded technology network for the benefit of NZ enterprises.”
NZ Product Accelerator, a collaboration of NZ universities and Crown Research Institute GNS Science, was formed in 2013 with funding from the Ministry for Building, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) Enabling Technology platform.
Since then it has worked with around 400 companies, generating product revenues of approximately $175m on MBIE funding of $12.8m.
In recognition of its impact, it was funded for a further four years in the 2019 Wellbeing Budget under the Industry Futures initiative.
