Troy White is Product Development Advisor with the Industry Development Centre, a not-for-profit organisation that manages the NSW government's Hunter Innovation Advisory Centre. The centre offers information and advice about intellectual property and the process of commercialising products.
Australian inventors ask the centre for help with 1400 new ideas every year - ranging from educational products to knee-toboggans.
Troy talks to Jenny Macklin about the centre and the importance of innovation for the future of Australia's knowledge economy.
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Jenny: I’m talking to Troy White - Product Development Advisor at the Industry Development Centre, Hi Troy!
Troy: Hi Jenny
Jenny: What is it that makes something innovative?
Troy: Innovation is creating value from new ideas. There are a lot of different terms that are used currently, one is the idea itself which we look at as the very starting point of the process and then from that idea people work forward to develop an invention or a new type of product. And then finally innovation is creating value from that original idea that they had and it can normally be getting it onto the market shelf or it can be the value maybe in saving time or in employee retention. Normally the people we work with get involved in patenting and actually trying to make some dollars out of it.
Jenny: Is it possible to encourage people to be innovative?
Troy: It certainly is. I think in many ways education is a key area that can really add some value. Many of the people I see and in my experiences as well there’s no area where we have been given an understanding of innovation of intellectual property, of patents. I think everyone at some point in their life thinks “Gee, I’ve got a really good idea for a product, I can’t buy it anywhere.” But not many people know the next few steps and I think if we can address that and help people gain a better understanding of how to take that idea forward into the next level that would be a great way of encouraging more products to come through the system. In Australia we’re great with ideas - we’re not as well regarded at being able to take them on.
Jenny: So that’s where the Industry Development Centre comes in? What exactly do you do?
Troy: It certainly is, we are a not for profit organisation. We run an innovation program that is sponsored by the NSW Dept of State Regional Development. That gives every resident or business an opportunity to come along for a free initial consultation where we will give a lot of education about intellectual property, about innovation, about the process of commercialising the products and hopefully identify a couple of next steps for each person to take there project that next step forward. From there, once you move out of that state government sponsored program, we have professional services that can take you right into prototyping, making models, getting testing done and then hopefully putting it on the shelf!
We have a number of products now including one that went on the shelf at Bunnings. A mum from Victoria had an idea for a powerpoint safety cover. She is now licensed into Bunnings. She has moved 60,000 of those units in the last three months. So it certainly can be anybody!
Jenny: How important is innovation for the Australian economy?
Troy: Look, if we’re going to be a knowledge economy then the way to protect our investment in our ideas is by getting the right protection in place. Whether it be patents, registered designs, trademarks. With a lot of the manufacturing moving internationally at the moment, we need to gain better retention of our own great ideas and new products so we make sure that we have ownership of those ideas. Whether we’re importing or exporting that idea into international territories, that’s where as an innovative nation – as we are - that we are we can start to gain great value back. So we are not only making money here in Australia off our own new ideas, but we’re also getting that investment back from our idea when it’s commercialised overseas.
Jenny: So do you see a lot of educational products?
Troy: I think roughly about 4 or 5 % of the products that come through the centre are either software or education. I don’t see them everyday, but we do have quite a wide variety. In many cases it may be different methods to help a child develop reading. It may be tools or resources that people can use to help them gain that knowledge as well. It’s quite a wide cross section of things that we see. But yes, there are quite a number involved in innovation in the education area.
Jenny: And are many of those elearning products or educational software?
Troy: I would say it’s more “hands on” tools than ecommerce or elearning products. We have had a couple, but more often than not they’re methods for helping students learn better - not necessarily in an internet environment.
Jenny: Would most of your clients be people who had just had one “brain wave” or are they people who spend their time tinkering away …full-time inventors?
Troy: I’ve been waiting for this question! A lot of people think that inventors are all “lab coats and grey hair” but the majority of the people we see are either small business people who have expertise in a particular area of interest - they may have been an electrician and have moved up through the business and now they have their own business in the field and they have a unique knowledge of what works in that environment and what doesn’t work. So quite often while their working on those jobs with their specialised education they come up with ways of doing things better.
The other version are normal everyday people who have a need for a product that they’d like to buy but they look around and can’t find it for sale anywhere and then think “well there should be a product that can do this - why isn’t there?” That’s the people that come in and work through our process –
• Is it for sale anywhere in the world?
• If not why not?
• Should it be for sale?
• Should I be the one to put it out there?
Jenny: Do you think timing is as important as anything else when it comes to an innovation being successful?
Troy: I think timing is critical. There’s a good example at the moment of the flying car that they’re currently working on over in the US. The car does fly. They’re still doing some final testing and what not, but the problem for that car may well be that we don’t have any laws or rules to have everyone driving flying cars around at the moment. The infrastructure for that technology to actually come into play is probably still another 10, 15, 20 years off. The car may only be five years off, but no one will be able to drive it. So the government and the laws will be chasing the technology to try and catch up.
Timing is critical for every product - whether it’s a high tech product and whether the market is ready for it or not.
Jenny: Do you think it’s getting harder to be innovative? Do you ever see anything and think “Yes, I’ve never seen that before”? or do you find that most innovations are just a modification of something that already exists?
Troy: Most things that we see are improvements upon existing products that have been done before. It comes back to the level of improvement. If you are going to bring a product out into the marketplace more often than not it’s got to use existing technology and work in with the existing technology in one way or another.
There are a number of new ideas that are coming out, particularly in the field of energy use, where now people are spending quite a bit of time and investment in trying to come up with new ways to do it as we start to lose our fossil fuel resources. So, in areas such as that there are really new ways of thinking coming forward. From areas where people are looking for a particular type of product and can’t buy it, then often it is improvements upon existing products.
Jenny: So what’s your favourite invention of all time?
Troy: My favourite invention of all time is probably the bicycle.
Oh, it’s a fairly simple….well, I say it’s simple now, but at the time it wasn’t simple at all! It allowed people to move away from horses and have a mechanical device for transport and it really moved the transport industry to the next level very early on. It wasn’t a rocket or anything like that, it was just a clever use of the way that they could put things together at that time – but it freed people up from animals as such.
Jenny: Can you think of any innovations that haven’t quite hit us yet, that are going to have a big impact on our lives?
Troy: There are few things that are coming forward at the moment – the flying car that I mentioned earlier is one of those things.
Jenny: Do you think that will take off…er….so to speak.
Troy: Ha ha! You said that! Look, I think it will. I just think it’s going to be a little while off yet. I think some of the pressing issues regarding fossil fuels and energy use…. I think there’s a number of new types of engines and new fuel technologies. Solar energy, which still isn’t wide spread in commercial uses at the moment, I think that’s another area that we’re going to see really start to take off as well.
And then we have medicine. That is currently one of the high growth areas as well - both biotechnology and others. There are a lot of things coming out of those fields and they’re rapidly advancing ahead.
Jenny: How many innovations would you see in a week?
Troy: In a week roughly I would guess twenty. The annual figures are around 1400 enquires a year, which result in about 700 consultations. As they move through the process we find that many people choose not to move forward through the research they’re doing.
Jen: Out of those 700 consultations how many would go on to actually make a successful marketable product?
Troy: Out of those 700 we actually took on - in terms of that tech transfer program – we took on five. We have two of those now being licensed. We have another two that have gone into manufacturing themselves. And we have got another one that is still working through the process at the moment. So, what we always tell people very early on is, it’s a process that not many people get through to the end on. But that’s fine, because if you are the one to get through there’s a great opportunity there! But you don’t want to spend any more money than you need to as you work out if it’s a good opportunity or not!
Jenny: Have you seen any sad stories where people have put in their life savings into something and it just hasn’t worked out?
Troy: We see many, many sad stories. Normally they’re from individual people who have gone to a provider and been charged a lot of money and then they haven’t had a deal done.
Definitely hear a lot of that. And that’s the reason why we’re fairly actively out there in the marketplace attending business seminars just to try to get the message across to people that there are government sponsored programs out there that can help people work through this system.
