Innovation Made Local
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INNOVATION MADE LOCAL
For Enviro Frontier, the benefits of research & development (R&D) are clear, the challenge is identifying opportunities and the resources needed.
“R&D investment allows businesses to consider opportunities outside of normal operations. For many SMEs, however, the step to ‘what and why’ can appear so great nothing is attempted,” said Peter Dubiez, CEO Enviro Frontier.
Peter and his team were considering going offshore to access the specialist skills needed to deliver a planned follow up to their proprietary software, Tree Manager TM. This changed with APR.Intern matched them with University of Technology Sydney (UTS) postgraduate, Shridhar Krishnan.
“Our initial consideration was to access these skills overseas, but aligning with APR.Intern, Shridhar, UTS and the Government grant allowed us to ensure the knowledge and ideas were locally grown and developed within Australia,”
Peter Dubiez, CEO Enviro Frontier
Shridhar was able to identify ways to elevate the information currently available with the company. With business knowledge, Shridhar was able help the company gain momentum in the project and stay in front of competitors.
“He identified ways to leverage the data collected by us since 2013, this information helped generate valuable insights into existing business and generate market place interest,” said Peter.
For Shridhar, it was a powerful opportunity to apply his research expertise to a real industry problem, while developing essential skills needed to drive commercial innovation.
“The internship fast-tracked my entry into industry, allowing me to develop essential skills needed to effectively work in this environment, particularly communication and collaboration. In the end I was offered a role at Enviro Frontier,”
Shridhar Krishnan, PhD Intern at Enviro Frontier
Instrumental to Shridhar’s success was the experience and expertise of his Academic Mentor, UTS School of Software’s Dr Asif Gill.
“As my first role mentoring, this was a very positive experience that helped propel my agenda to expand my industry network. It has created ongoing collaborative opportunities, with Shridhar continuing to work with me to develop his leadership skills,” said Asif.
The impact of the business management service’s experience with APR has been dramatic, with the company employing Shridhar as a team leader and expanding their internal capability and are workshopping future opportunities to be delivered with support from UTS.
“Prior to commencement with APR.Intern, we relied on offshore host and support IT. The relationship with APR.Intern, Shridhar, UTS and the current future possibilities mean we now have three in-house developers,” said Peter.
