{"id":47824,"date":"2023-10-20T15:55:23","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/new-mining-focused-perth-accelerator-drills-deep-for-tech-startups-startupsmart-2\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:55:23","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:55:23","slug":"new-mining-focused-perth-accelerator-drills-deep-for-tech-startups-startupsmart-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/new-mining-focused-perth-accelerator-drills-deep-for-tech-startups-startupsmart-2\/","title":{"rendered":"New mining-focused Perth accelerator drills deep for tech startups – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A new tech accelerator has launched in Perth which will nurture startups solving problems in the mining industry.<\/p>\n

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Unearthed will run for six months and organisers are aiming to bring on board three startups in its first intake. They\u2019ll take part in a pilot program, and if successful, the hope is by 2016, the accelerator will be able to scale up to 10 startups per class.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s organised by Resource Innovation through Information Technology (RIIT) and supported by the likes of Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Gold Fields and Austmine.<\/p>\n

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Startups taking part will receive $70,000 worth of seed funding in exchange for 10% equity. The idea for the accelerator program spawned from a successful mining technology hackathon which RIIT held in Perth earlier this year.<\/p>\n

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Hackathon\u2019s will be a key part of this new accelerator\u2019s strategy. It plans to hold Unearthed hackathon events around Australia in 2015, in the hopes of creating new startups solving problems in the mining industry.<\/p>\n

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The first startup to be accepted into the program is Newton Labs, which won the Unearthed Hackathon earlier this year with their idea for a unique monitoring system that helps detect oversize boulders in hard rock mining \u2013 a problem that costs the industry around $100 million a year.<\/p>\n

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Newton Labs co-founder Simon Vincent, says without that hackathon, there\u2019s no way the startup would have been founded.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe didn\u2019t even know it was a problem really,\u201d Vincent says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut after the event we were able to speak to industry experts who guided us and kept pushing us to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

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RIIT\u2019s Justin Strharsky says the mining industry\u2019s current approach to innovation is to make substantial investments in the hopes of seeing returns in 10 to 15 years\u2019 time. Unearthed is taking a far quicker approach, hoping to help create and support startups that have the potential to solve problems in under two years.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re about open innovation and helping their investment create significant changes in between 12 and 18 months,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe event format lowers the barriers to experimentation and expedites the development of proof-of-concept solutions to high-value resources sector problems.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAustralian mining has experienced a steady decline in productivity over the past decade. Most stakeholders believe part of the solution lies in innovation and the ability of the mining industry to more quickly adopt new technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Follow<\/i> StartupSmart on<\/i> Facebook<\/i>,<\/i> Twitter<\/i>, and<\/i> LinkedIn<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new tech accelerator has launched in Perth which will nurture startups solving problems in the mining industry.   Unearthed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,8,28,18,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47824"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}