BRII gave us the ability to climb to a next level
The biggest benefit has been allow us to take forward something that we really see was needed
The government really saw was needed and to make that match
You know normally you when you're in start-up mode
you've either got to slog it away, you know,
and you're leaning on your family, your partner, to support you while you're trying to get traction or you go out and, you know, you
try and raise capital and get investment in it and you give over equity, and so
the condition with BRII where you get the funding, you keep your IP. That's fantastic.
It starts with the problem rather than
with a new technology that is looking for an application. So I think that sets it apart from other
innovation programs. So we don't see it as as a program where
where you get some money and go away and do something and write a report. The key
thing about it is that you're looking to commercialization at the end. So you say you're always thinking about
how do I at first of all do I deliver on the contract that I've got?
And secondly what happens after that and how do I take that forward?
It's a fantastic program that kind of
mashes up a
grant program, a traditional government grant program, with almost an accelerator program.
When the challenge came along we saw it as a great opportunity.
It was something we'd been thinking about but
the cost of building the sort of web and mobile applications that we're building in this was basically prohibitive and
we always thought that was a bit of a shame because we sit on a huge amount of information
that
through giving public access to that, we felt could be really beneficial to the development of water markets.
We put forward what we thought was quite a radical idea and an innovative idea
and we weren't sure if the government were going to go to be honest because it was quite cutting edge
but I think they saw that there was an exciting opportunity
Often with a procurement process that can be can be quite
byzantine I suppose and and so that you're never quite sure what the outcome is going to be
With this it was pretty straightforward
They were clearly set out criteria you address the criteria
or either you either did a good job, or you didn't and you got a result.
I think the main challenge we've had in the BRII challenge has been the time line
so we are creating a
brand new device that didn't exist before the challenge and
it's being developed
through our company iugotec and our partners
very very rapidly. So I think the time to product has been
very very short, but we're going to succeed
In a matter of months we've been able to
build
products that are live and that we can sit around kitchen tables with irrigators and we have been doing that and show them and
you know, watch how they use it and watch how they play with it, basically and learn from that
From the very first proposal that we put in all the way through we decided to give it our all
basically, and so that that set us up well, I think
But on the other side of the coin the BRII program those who've been running it
have done a really great job
Specifically they've been great at being very responsive to our needs in our requests
I think there's a bit of a perception with government that it can be
quite bureaucratic heavy, a lot of red tape, a bit slow
and whatnot, and what we found was the opposite.
I work with the BRII team, has been fantastic. We've had a lot of support and guidance and
importantly, we've had a lot of feedback during the process about how we're performing
So, we're much more confident going forward
to work with government and would not be afraid to approach them and say hey we can solve this problem
We're actually now commercial and actually a solution is out there working for the government already. We think
commercially we've we've got some great bones, good stuff that we can we can apply elsewhere
So the future is looking very bright
It's clearly meeting a gap in the market and we look forward to going live
Scaffle will become the go-to solution in Australia and New Zealand to begin with, and then we're looking abroad at other countries
who are really trying to push their democracy capability forward.
Yeah, we plan to go global