Bionics Institute CEO Robert Klupacs, and CTO Professor James Fallon appeared on Ticker News – a fast-growing business/tech news service streaming 24/7 and available on-demand through smart devices.
Robert and James shared how Australia needs to invest in infrastructure, support skills development and embrace an appetite for risk to become a global med tech leader.
Robert detailed the process of how an idea goes from concept to reality saying, “it’s a long process, you need to have very good research.
“Once you get to the research phase, then it needs to be moved up the chain. You need to think about how you manufacture it, how to develop it, how you test it, it takes a lot of money and it takes a lot of time.
“For one of our companies, it was nine years of research before we could get to the commercialisation stage”.
Professor James Fallon said a culture of ‘failing safely’ needs to be adopted within Australia to accelerate innovation and learning.
“The real key is that we’ve got to be brave enough to fail,” Fallon detailed. “As with any innovation, there’s a risk of failing. I think we tend to be too conservative.
“We want to get devices into trial quickly – see if they work, and if and if they do, fantastic and if they don’t, we turn around and we go again, bringing that experience back from industry in academia.”
Watch the video broadcast here
Learn more about the Bionics Institute 2023 Innovation Lecture.
