Episode 80 -- Dr Mobin Nomvar from Scimita Ventures

Welcome to this special episode of @AuManufacturing Conversations with Brent Balinski, one which we're running as part of our quest to identify Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers.

The 50 Most Innovative is an annual campaign by @AuManufacturing. This time around it has been made possible through the generous support of MYOB, CSIRO, and the NSW government’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Facility.

Episode guide

0:51 – What Scimita does. 

3:18 – A background in chemical engineering, energy systems engineering, elite cycling and elsewhere, plus what brought him to Australia from Iran.

5:55 – Why he quit academia.

8:35 – Cracking the innovation code, beginning with a process engineering approach.

9:40 – Even really smart people can be sucked into a black hole, where there is too wide a range of options.

11:00 – Matching TRL with CRL and why that matters.

12:02 – The golden rule.

13:30 - Identifying risks early on and turning them into timelines.

14:20 – Some other readiness levels that get considered.

16:30 – A personal view of innovation.

18:20 – Successfully refocussing their business model after a downturn, leading to a contract with the Trailblazer for Recycling and Clean Energy (TRaCE)

20:00 – What is the issue we need to address to improve research commercialisation in Australia? It’s “a mismatch problem wrapped in complexity.”

23:02 – Why they do business out of the inner west suburb of St Peters. It comes down to travel and modularity.

24:08 – A project involving a monitoring device for bedbugs, which required them to breed and observe the “most important stakeholder” for the product onsite.

27:02 – Safety cannot be compromised in commercialisation projects.

28:24 – The rise of the circular economy in Australia and what needs to change (Scimita co-founder Professor Ali Abbas is Australia’s first Chief Circular Engineer, among other roles.)

29:50 - The circular economy is a very old concept, though current opportunities are immense. 

30:34 – Circularity doesn’t actually guarantee sustainability.

31:35 – A look back at Nomvar’s PhD work on a tiny carbon capture device, which might have a business case one day, but “not on this planet, probably.”

34:00 – The many challenges involved in his doctoral work, not all of them technical, and the spinoff benefits of solving these.

35:20 – Some thoughts on risk appetite when it comes to investment and high-tech manufacturing in this nation.

36:20 – What the US gets right in encouraging high-tech businesses and what we lack.

37:50 – Scimita’s plans to help the innovation ecosystem here.

39:05 “This is a golden time for Australia… This is the fifth industrial revolution… It’s not going to come around again.”

40:05 – Government initiatives need to consult more closely with industry to understand innovation.

40:45 – “I think we as a nation need to have a very open, thoughtful discussion about what manufacturing means to Australia, given that our labour costs are high. And we want [them] to be high, because that’s part of the prosperity conversation. But it also means we have to be a lot smarter about what we are manufacturing and how we are marketing that.”

Relevant links
Scimita's website
Sydney metal powder technology company announces $15 million Series A