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Victoria government invests heavily in AI

The Victorian Government recently announced it would contribute $1.5 million to the establishment of Australia’s first multimillion-dollar accelerator and investment fund for Artificial Intelligence (AI) scaleups.

Backed by LaunchVic, Victoria’s startup agency, Boab AI in partnership with Artesian, Victorian universities and Artesian’s international partner programs will unlock millions of dollars of private sector capital to help high growth AI scaleups.

Artificial Intelligence uses data to build systems that simulate human intelligence processes. There are more than 300 AI start-ups in Australia – including 65 in Victoria – applying AI in sectors ranging from health care and medicine to transport, agriculture, recruitment and construction.

One of these ground-breaking companies is a Melbourne start-up that has developed a low-cost skin cancer check which applies data to an image sent from a smartphone to calculate a risk profile and prepare the picture for a doctor’s diagnosis.

Another is a Bundoora-based firm whose cloud-based Alfie tool provides automated image analysis that can be used in the agriculture sector to help control feral animals and protect native species.

As part of the new accelerator and investment program, set to be rolled out by the end of the year, Artesian will invest a minimum of $8 million of private sector capital in 32 AI scaleups – with a minimum of $300,000 for each scaleup that graduates from the Boab AI program.

Artesian will also establish and raise a new venture capital (VC) fund with a target of $50 million to provide ongoing investment support for AI scaleups.

The new accelerator program will establish an AI internship program, run community-focused AI events and create over 75 new jobs through Boab AI and participating AI scaleups over four years.

The lack of funding available to startups in the early stages of their lifecycle has been identified by LaunchVic as a major impediment to startup growth in Victoria.  Artificial Intelligence is projected to become a major global market, adding $15 trillion of value to the world economy by 2030 and generating 161,000 new jobs.

The Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy stated that Artificial Intelligence is rapidly transforming the global economy, creating new opportunities, industries and jobs.

This funding will help to position Victoria as a leading destination for AI technology within the Asia Pacific region, attracting and developing the best talent, investment and AI expertise.

The LaunchVic Chief Executive stated that Victoria has the strong foundations to support a growing AI ecosystem with many of its dominant tech sectors providing a great opportunity for AI integration.

Overall, there is a lack of general awareness as to the huge potential this sector presents in terms of problem-solving to the broader community. The new program will ensure Victoria is competitive and forward-looking.

The investment is timely. According to one article, Australia needs to look beyond roadmaps and encourage business to invest in artificial intelligence, tech community leaders warned.

The Associate Dean of Research Strategy and Management at UTS, on a news television panel, had said that while Australia leads the world in AI research on a per-capita basis, a failure to commercialise academia’s work threatens the nation’s position.

He noted, “I believe we have a long way to go to increase our investment in AI. It’s really great to look at roadmaps because they are a snapshot of the current status.”

“By ranking of the number of scientific publications and the research output we create in this country, we are number one by capita. The challenge there is the translation of that research. We have the top-ranking by research in the world in AI – the next big step is investing and growing that pie.”

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Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

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CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

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Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

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SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

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HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

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IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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