Page 4223 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 24 October 2017
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MS CODY: Chief Minister, how have the government’s international engagements contributed to attracting inward investment for Canberra and the region?
MR BARR: Recently I have taken the opportunity to set out the benefits of Canberra to a range of multinationals, including Cisco, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, SpaceX, Planet Labs and Microsoft, with a focus on opportunities to further develop the space, defence, ICT and cybersecurity sectors in our city.
I particularly stressed the opportunities to partner with thriving and innovative local small and medium enterprises in each of these sectors. The government has delivered on a range of significant international engagement initiatives in the 2016-17 fiscal year, including trade and investment-focussed delegations to Wellington, the United States, Singapore, Nara and Tokyo in Japan, Hong Kong, and Beijing and Shenzhen in China.
Recent inward investment success or significant export contracts for Canberra have included the Microsoft Azure cloud platform established with Canberra Data Centres; Intelledox securing a $4 million investment from Ellerston Capital; and ONTHEGO Sports, Inland Trading Co, QuintessenceLabs, WildBear Entertainment, Bottles of Australia, the Cogito Group, automed and Seeing Machines all receiving significant new contracts or inward investment.
MS CHEYNE: Chief Minister, what have been some of the success stories from local Canberra businesses entering the international market?
MR BARR: Automed is a good example. It is an agricultural services company that automatically calculates, delivers and records livestock treatments. The business relocated from Newcastle to be part of the vibrant Canberra business start-up community and the networks and services we have here.
The government’s innovation connect program helped the final phases of the company’s product development strategy. It is now offering its products globally through a US company, Neogen, supplying into the US, Canada, Asia and Europe.
Instaclustr was founded in 2013 in Canberra. It offers cloud-based, open source data platform services delivering scalable reliability to build applications and technology. It recently received an investment of $7 million led by Bailador Technology Investments, which declared Instaclustr as a “market leader, with a world-class team and deep expertise”.
Instaclustr has customer-focused resources in North America, Asia and Europe. The company’s Canberra workforce has doubled to 40 people in the past year since it moved from its incubator space at the Canberra Innovation Network.
The remaining time permits me to mention one other: QuintessenceLabs, which was formed from the ANU quantum data security technology. It is a globally renowned company securing investments from a wide range of sources and collaborating with NASA, IBM and a range of US defence companies. QuintessenceLabs has also
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