Event | SABRE Alliance Futures Summit 2024
SABRE Alliance Futures Summit 2024 – Crafting Resilience Through Innovation
More than 100 delegates attended the SABRE Alliance Futures Summit 2024 at the University of Adelaide on Wednesday 16 October.
The delegates represented a broad spectrum of Australia's leading organisations, including academia, Defence, industry (Defence and Health/Medtech) and other government representatives from the CSIRO, Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the South Australian Research & Development Institute (SARDI).
The day's theme on biosecurity focused on crafting resilience through scientific innovation. The event was buzzing from the start with energy and expectation, given the previous success of the inaugural SABRE Day in 2023. It began with a discussion panel looking at the new National Science Research Priorities and their relevance to the current Defence threat landscape.
Australia's Chief Scientist Dr Cathy Foley, Chief of Sensors & Effectors Division, Defence Science and Technology Group Dr Sylvie Perreau, former Chief of Army Rick Burr, CE of SARDI Dr Hannah Brown and CEO ExoFlare Pty Ltd Adrian Turner led the discussion which was facilitated by Director of Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing, Prof Mark Hutchison.
Delegates then participated in an interactive vignette-based workshop which focused on a realistic (but fictional) biosecurity threat, that was led by Dr Genevieve Dennison from DSTG and developed by the CBRN MOU Task 9 group. This involved the audience breaking up into groups of 10 people and discussing the problem and potential solutions. It enabled attendees to engage with each other, network, and think innovatively about the problem.
Throughout the workshop, more information on the scenario was divulged, providing further discussion points and looking at the problem from different points of view. The workshop component culminated in presentation of solutions to the judge Prof Mark Hutchison to select a final winner. The data collected from the workshop will go into a final report which will be made available to all attendees and the wider community.
A second round table panel was held that discussed next steps for future meetings and funding sources. The panel discussion, facilitated by CEO, Science Technology Australia Ryan Winn, included Founding Partner, Cultiv8 Funds Management Malcolm Nutt, VU Venture Partners Jo Chaturvedi-Durant, Prof Christine Twomey, and Assistant Secretary, Australian Economic Accelerator Drew Menzies-McVey.
Special thanks to MTPConnect for their sponsorship of morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea, University of Adelaide for the venue, Science Technology Australia for registration logistics and DSTG for vignette content and facilitator support.
Pictured left to right: Prof Mark Hutchison, Dr Cathy Foley, Lieutenant General (Retired) Rick Burr, Dr Sylvie Perreau, Dr Hannah Brown, and Adrian Turner.
Pictured left to right: Jo Chaturvedi-Durant, Ryan Winn, Prof Christine Twomey, Malcolm Nutt, and Drew Menzies-McVey.
