Inventors showcased their finest creations at the annual Bendigo Inventor Awards, held at the Discovery Science and Technology Centre.
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The 2018 program included the categories of Health, Environmental Sustainability, Agriculture, the Open class for miscellaneous entries and an overall winner.
The winner of the Agriculture category and overall inventor of the year was awarded to Joel Rockes for AgriNous, real time livestock processing software.
“It digitises the transaction process of livestock from farm through to stock agents, all the way through to meat buyers and processors,” Mr Rockes said.
Mr Rockes worked within the banking sector before he moved into a private practice stock agency business in Bendigo.
“I saw there were lots of areas of data duplication and essentially a large workload that in the modern day didn’t need to be there, so we streamlined it all and packaged it into a software product,” Mr Rockes said.
The Health category was awarded to Brian Abbey for NanoMslide, an invention which helps fast track the pathology blood testing process.
“Rather than pathologists having to send away samples and have time consuming tests done, we want to be able to provide them with the equipment to have results straight away,” Dr Abbey said.
The Environmental Sustainability category was awarded to Dennis Collins for an invention which separates PVC material from items so they can be recycled.
“You soak the items in a chemical, then drain the chemical off and then we use a catalyst on it, the process swells the item up so we can then easily separate them,” Mr Collins said.
The Open category was awarded to Cam McAdie and Dean Pinninger for the invention of the Heavy Duty Rapid Insulation Displacement Connection System.
The Bendigo Inventor Awards is an invention program which connects industry, government and community while encouraging ideas within the area of environment, agriculture, health, emergency services and disaster management.
Taking it to the next level
Bendigo Inventor Awards Project director David Hughes said he was excited by the quality of entries for the 2018 competition.
“All of the inventors are so great at what they do and they are also so creative,” Mr Hughes said.
“There is such a wide variety of entries so I always enjoy the process of having a look at them all when they come in, the things which people come up with are amazing.”
City of Greater Bendigo mayor Margaret O’Rourke said she was also impressed with the quality of inventions.
“Bendigo has a proven track record of being very innovative, if we look right back to the days of the gold rush,” Cr O’Rourke said.
Some of the entries included robots, medical technology, universal tool power adapters, IT technology, livestock tracking applications and wire fencing solutions.
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