Genics’ Shrimp Multipath has taken out the Translation Hero Award at the InnovationAus 2023 Awards for Excellence for its innovative solution addressing food waste in the aquaculture industry.
The InnovationAus 2023 Awards for Excellence were presented on Wednesday night at a black-tie gala dinner at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney.
The Translation Hero Award was proudly sponsored by the CSIRO and was presented on the night by CSIRO Executive Manager of Innovation Programs Tennille Eyre.
The award shines a spotlight on an entrepreneurial innovation that has led to a stunning commercial outcome and helped to form the backbone of the Australian economy.
The finalists have excelled in scientific and tech research and development, and are individuals and teams which have commercialised deep tech research and IP into productive and rapidly-growing companies.
Genics took out the award for its Shrimp Multipath offering, which acts as an early warning system to identify pathogens in shrimp farms, reducing wastage and improving efficiency.
The innovative solution was developed by Genics chief executive Dr Melony Sellars during her two-decades career at CSIRO. The science agency licensed the IP that the company is based on, and it launched to the global market under the Shrimp Multipath name.
WiseTech Global co-founder Richard White bought a minority stake in Genics last year through his company RealWise.
“As the CSIRO and Richard and our team have seen, it’s a huge area. We’re very proud of Genics being a global player in food security space, it’s a huge area,” said WiseTech’s Kate Razzivina.
The Genics system scans for 14 common pathogens impacting prawns, helping farms to detect the diseases and informing their stock management decisions. It’s all about ensuring the best quality product is provided to consumers and as little as possible goes to waste.
If pathogens are not detected early, they can lead to the entire prawn stock being destroyed, or can make the surviving stock slower and smaller. The Shrimp Multipath platform has a turnaround of less than two days, making it significantly quicker than other options.
One trial of the technology led to improved management decisions that helped to increase production output by $67,000 per hectare at a farm gate value.
In Ecuador, the world’s largest shrimp exporter, the company helped to double the egg outputs in its clients’ breeding stock.
At a time when the world’s food production needs to jump by more than 50 percent to meet the needs of the growing population, Shrimp Multipath is an innovative solution to food wastage based on pioneering research that has been effectively commercialised.
“We want to say a big thank you to CSIRO for all the support and we just wanted to say congratulations to the team at Genics everyone,” said Ms Razivina. “And to Richard White, our well known Australian tech entrepreneur, for supporting it.”
The other Translation Hero finalists were Diraq and Femtek’s Hero.
The InnovationAus 2023 Awards for Excellence are proudly supported by Investment NSW, AusIndustry, Australian Computer Society, Technology Council of Australia, Agile Digital, CSIRO, TechnologyOne, IP Australia, METS Ignited and Q-CTRL.
