Round 2 Grant Recipients
Congratulations to the Aus4Innovation Partnership Grant Round 2 recipients
The second round of the Aus4Innovation Grants is themed around scaling existing Australia – Vietnam innovation partnerships. Five projects received funding in this round, out of a total of 82 applicants.
All projects are co-led by teams in Australia and Vietnam, and in this round, we provided a total of AUD 2 million in funding which will enable the five projects to scale up their innovative ideas and create sustainable economic and social impact.
Each project team will utilise technologies and experiences from Australia and local know-how of Vietnam, to build on existing proven results across a range of priority technology and development sectors. Find out more below on each project.
Addressing Vietnam’s environmental challenges: flood monitoring
Residents in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in the middle of flooding season. Flooding is just one of Vietnam’s environmental challenges.
In Ho Chi Minh City, there is a 60 per cent chance that your home may become damaged due to flooding, causing significant economic and infrastructure damage. Researchers from Griffith University and Saigon Hi-Tech Park are using real-time flood monitoring technology to help prevent human disasters.
This technology is an innovative, low-power consumption, wireless sensor network for reliably detecting flooding. It can directly improve the flood prevention, management and response; delivering a positive impact on local safety, business productivity and environmental protection affecting millions of people.
Maintaining produce quality from farm to market
New cool chain technology will increase the supply of quality vegetables from Son La to urban markets in Vietnam.
The vegetable sector is an important source of employment for the local people, especially women, in the Son La province. With the development of supermarkets in Hanoi and other big cities, customers are now demanding high-quality agricultural products.
However, the lack of a functional cool chain means the farmers are losing up to 30 per cent of the goods they send to market. Researchers at Applied Horticultural Research and Fresh Studio are developing a way to fill the current gap in the value chain. They are working with local farmers, the private sector and government to build an innovative low-cost CoolBot controller.
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Improving productivity for Vietnam’s agricultural sector
Beanstalk will work with agribusiness leaders on Vietnam’s environmental challenges faced by the agriculture sector.
The agricultural industry in Vietnam faces ongoing pressures from climate and weather risk, market dynamics and unsustainable production methods. These pressures combine to adversely impact environmental, financial and social outcomes and cause harm to land and water resources, smallholder farmer livelihoods and consumer confidence.
In collaboration with the MBI Innovation Challenge and other local partners, Beanstalk is establishing a commercially-focused AgriTech acceleration program in Vietnam. The program targets agriculture segments in aquaculture, crops and plantations, and livestock. The accelerator will be the first of its kind, with a dedicated focus on addressing agriculture sector challenges and improving productivity.
Catfish by-products reducing environmental impacts
Researchers aim to reduce the negative environmental impacts from the catfish processing industry.
Catfish by-products represent about 60-70 per cent of the fish biomass. Rapid development of the Tra Catfish fillet market has seen a need to update processing the historically perceived ‘waste by-product’ technologies and management. With market competition and tightening of environmental regulations, it has stimulated much interest in the industry to make significant improvements.
Researchers at Western Sydney University and Research Institute for Aquaculture No.2 are working together to improve value-added product recovery and development from fishery processing by-products which will help to reduce negative environmental impacts.
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Protecting mangrove aquaculture in the Mekong Delta
Mangrove aquaculture is heavily dependent on the influx of high quality natural tidal water.
Mangrove aquaculture systems provide multiple products and ecosystem services. These include the support of fisheries, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, coastal protection and resilience to climate change and are more sustainable than other forms of aquaculture. The health of the mangrove and the health and productivity of aquatic species are closely linked.
To tackle this problem, researchers at the University of Queensland in collaboration with Green Field Consulting and Development are developing an environmental monitoring system that includes a suite of mangrove-aquaculture health indicators. The technology will support stakeholders to better monitor and receive reports on the water quality, mangrove change and aquaculture.
Video: find out more about the projects
