At the Australian Engineering Conference one of the nation’s most highly awarded engineers could engage your business in its next big innovation challenge, all in the name of national security.
Automation and robotics are not a modern phenomenon. Back in the 1980s, when young Alex Zelinsky was a student at the University of Wollongong and a cadet Systems Engineer with BHP Steel, he knew where he wanted his career to go.
Fascinated by computers and automation, he became involved in a BHP project known as ‘Hot Strip Mill automation’. It revolved around the development of a mill that would have the ability to independently roll a slab of steel into a 1.5-km long steel coil.
This was automation at its very best, a piece of high technology that did a big job well. And just like that Zelinsky was hooked on ‘big’. “I left BHP to study robotics and do a PhD but that experience was what taught me that I wanted to work on big things,” Dr Alex Zelinsky (pictured above) says. “I wanted my work to have big effects and high impact.”
His career has included the co-founding of a business called Seeing Machines (now listed on the London Stock Exchange), executive roles at the CSIRO where he drove innovation, particularly in Information & Communication Technology (ICT), and now the role of Chief Defence Scientist and Head of Defence Science and Technology (DST) for the Australian Government.
“It has always been about making a difference,” Dr Zelinsky says of his career. “I like to say ‘Think big, then make it happen’. That theme has characterised my career as well as the organisations I have worked within and the teams I have led.”
Think big, then make it happen. Take hypersonic flight, for instance. Flying at Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, has often been considered near impossible. But in May this year, DST using the Woomera Range Complex in South Australia, launched a rocket that conducted hypersonics experiments at the astounding and almost unimaginable speed of Mach 7.5, or around 9200 km/hr. Think big, indeed.
The team from DST collaborated with Boeing, BAE Systems, DLR, the University of Queensland and the US Air Force Research Laboratory for the successful launch. Collaboration, in fact, was vital to the flight’s realisation. Few have a greater appreciation of the fact that many minds are better than one, which is why Dr Zelinsky is particularly excited about attending the Australian Engineering Conference 2016.
“The real challenge these days is to be able to harness capability in Australian academia, industry and other research agencies, such as CSIRO, ANSTO and others” he says.
Partnerships are very important. The 2016 Defence White Paper talks about those partnerships with Australia’s innovation system. We are determined to build those up, and to really harness the wisdom of Australian experts. We want them to contribute to national security outcomes.”
Dr Zelinsky is pleased that Defence can support new innovation initiatives, with funding coming from the Defence Innovation Hub, which has a budget of $640 million over the next decade. Then there’s the Next Generation Technology Fund which has a budget of $730 million to spend over the next decade.
Game changing technologies that attract the attention of the Next Generation Technology Fund are in areas such as cyber, electronic warfare, space, undersea warfare, surveillance and reconnaissance. Dr Zelinsky and his team are also interested in autonomous systems, hypersonics, quantum technologies and advanced material sciences.
We’re also thinking about how we can enhance the performance of our war fighters,” he says. “How can you make soldiers or war fighters more resilient. That can be about them physically, but it can also be around the technologies that support them, including even the psychology around their roles.”
“At the conference I will be talking about opportunities for partnership and collaboration with Defence. We intend to harness Australia's innovation system, which includes industry, in particular small, medium and large enterprises as well as academia and publicly-funded research agencies. We want to partner with anyone working in the innovation space who has capabilities that Defence could put to use, and we've got the funding to help facilitate those partnerships.”
To learn more, secure your spot at the Australian Engineering Conference where Dr Alex Zelinsky, Chief Defence Scientist and Head of Defence Science and Technology, Department of Defence will talk about “Australia’s defence engineering innovation”.