Innovation, particularly in the digital sphere, is taking place at an unprecedented scale and developments in artificial intelligence, 3D printing, immersive technologies, and smart materials are rapidly transforming global healthcare.
This presents considerable opportunities for the Gold Coast region where the healthcare and social assistance sector is worth around $3.5 billion annually and is its largest employer, supporting almost 44,000 jobs.
The Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct is among the enterprises leading this healthcare revolution as one of the most advanced health and knowledge innovation hubs in the Asia-Pacific region.
A legacy of the 2018 Commonwealth Games, the precinct brings together business, industry, and researchers to generate new ideas and create and commercialise innovative technologies.
In 2021, a team from the Gold Coast was one of four selected to take part in the Queensland Connects program. Run by the Queensland Government in collaboration with Queensland University of Technology, the program leverages the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) regional entrepreneurship development model to drive innovation-led entrepreneurship in regional Queensland.
The teams include participants from local government, universities, businesses, and local entrepreneurs working collaboratively in conjunction with QUT entrepreneurship educators to set a ‘must-win’ goal to leverage a local competitive advantage or find a tangible solution to a regional economic challenge.
The Gold Coast team, led by Datarwe Partnerships Manager and Medtech Program Manager at the Queensland AI Hub, Dr Stephanie Chaousis, looked to establishing the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct as a springboard to develop a pipeline of health tech business opportunities.
The idea’s success won them funding through Advance Queensland’s Regional Futures -Collaborative Projects for three key health tech projects selected for their focus on germinating new health tech businesses, increasing the capability of promising start-ups, and to scale-up a rising star in pioneering neurosurgery technology:
- Change Agent - Clinical Entrepreneurship Change Agents Program (CECAP): Griffith University Business School received $200,000 to identify and support clinicians to branch into innovation through free training and support
- Start-up - LuminaX Health Accelerator: CoSpaces Pty Ltd received $150,000 for assistance to commercialise 10 startups through a 14-week program aimed at accelerating growth and fast-tracking pathways to market and customers
- Scale-up - Neutex Image-guided Therapies Surgery and Robotics Training Centre received $200,000 for its Gold Coast-based Image-Guided Surgical Technologies Centre.
Both the CECAP and NeuTex projects are supported by the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct Office.
The precinct plays a key role in diversifying the Gold Coast economy – with healthcare now one of the region’s main economic pillars along with the construction, tourism, and manufacturing sectors.
The precinct’s Investment and Engagement Manager Kathy Kruger said they are strongly focused on building an investment pipeline.
“From student entrepreneurship initiatives to clinicians learning entrepreneurial skills to take their ideas into clinical practice or commercialisation, and researchers forming start-ups and being accelerated to success through the LuminaX program, the healthcare system is connecting like never before,” Ms Kruger said.
The Regional Futures - Collaborative Partnerships initiative aims to enable entrepreneurially minded organisations and partners to collaborate on solving regionally significant or cross-industry relevant real-world problems through innovation.
Funded projects must involve tangible activities that accelerate the change needed to position the region or sector for growth and jobs and create a legacy of sustained change for a Queensland sector or region.
Find out more or apply for funding at the Regional Futures – Collaborative Partnerships program page.
