Congratulations to the 2022 Innovator or Innovation Team of the Year finalists

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Be Well Lab

Dr Dan Fassnacht, Dr Kathina Ali, Dr Gareth Furber, Matthew Iasiello and Joep van Agteren, Flinders University

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Levels of mental illness and distress continue to rise in Australia, placing greater burden on individuals and already strained mental health services.
The Be Well Lab – a collaborative team of dedicated researchers and clinicians from Flinders University and the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) – has harnessed scientific research, including randomised controlled trials, to develop, test and disseminate innovative and sustainable solutions to challenge this problem.

The Be Well Tracker and Be Well Plan solutions have led to significant, meaningful improvements in mental health and distress, with an estimated social value of $22.5 million, among the general community and vulnerable populations. The flexibility of these solutions is unique, as individuals can personalise them to their own needs, interests and circumstances. An innovative train-the-trainer framework and accreditation protocol allows broad accessibility and dissemination.

The solutions are commercialised by SAHMRI's Be Well Co, leading to more than 20,000 people accessing the Be Well Tracker, more than 5,000 completing the Be Well Plan, and more than 40 facilitators having been accredited across Australia.
The vision of the Be Well Lab is to improve the mental health and wellbeing of Australians and reduce the increasing burden on health services.

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Professor Andre Luiten

Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing, The University of Adelaide

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Professor Andre Luiten FTSE FAIP GAICD is an internationally distinguished innovator and scientist who is passionate about precision measurement. Professor Luiten is currently the Director of the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing, Chair of Experimental Physics at The University of Adelaide, Managing Director and co-founder of rapidly growing SA company QuantX Labs Pty Ltd, and fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering.
On the academic side, Professor Luiten has raised $34 million for research, receiving the Bragg Medal for his PhD, was the inaugural WA Young Scientist of the Year and an inaugural SA Premier’s Research Fellow, and was awarded the National Measurement Institute’s Barry Inglis Medal.

Demonstrating his leadership in support of industry and his success in commercialisation, he has been recognised with the Australian Institute of Physics’ Alan Walsh Medal for Service to Industry and the prestigious Eureka Prize for Outstanding Science in Safeguarding Australia. His company, QuantX Labs, was recently named Avalon Defence Small-to-Medium-Enterprise of the Year.
Professor Luiten’s leading work and strategic leadership is helping shape South Australia as a hub for photonics and quantum innovation. 

 

3RT

Professor David Lewis and Associate Professor Jonathan Campbell, Flinders University

 

3RT has created a new, internationally patented technology that turns low value plantation timber into sustainable, high quality, affordable hardwood. The 3RT (Recycle, Reduce and Reuse Timber) products have the same visual appeal and warmth of natural timber, without the impact on old growth native forests. There is also the potential to reduce our carbon footprint by using this product in place of steel and concrete in the buildings of the future.

The technology developed by Lewis and Campbell incorporates advanced automation and computer control to the manufacturing and quality control processes, ensuring quality. Commercialising this technology has created a pathway to new manufacturing jobs for the entire high quality timber supply chain, from producing raw timber blocks all the way to the wood finishers who produce the tables, chairs, and architectural features with the warmth we all love and crave.
Through this product, created in South Australia and supported globally, consumers can get all of the benefits of natural timber, knowing it is sourced and is created in an accredited, sustainable way. 

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