21 November 2022
The official launch event of ActInSpace 2022
A group of Adelaide entrepreneurs have devised a winning solution for the early detection of earthquakes at the global innovation event at UniSA, ActInSpace.
The team will now travel to France in February next year, where they will present their winning solution to a panel of judges and compete against space innovators from around the world.
ActInSpace is a global innovation competition, dedicated to creating new solutions to combat challenges within the commercial space industry.
Co-organised by the French space agency, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), and the European Space Agency (ESA), ActInSpace was delivered locally by the University of South Australia’s Innovation & Collaboration Centre (ICC) with support from the Australian Space Agency, Accenture and other sponsors.
The 24-hour event saw participants address challenges like fighting climate change with Earth Observation technology, mitigating space debris collisions, using satellites to detect infectious disease, and how to safely settle humans on Mars.
Judges for the event were AIRBUS's Matthias Seifert, Australian Space Agency's Mellodee Anvia and Accenture's Jay Rasmussen.
The winning team, ThincSpace, beat out five other teams by pioneering an early detection earthquake system sensing ionospheric waves and magnetometer data for accuracy.
The ThincQuake application allows for early warnings up to one month in advance and emergency warnings with a days’ notice for magnitude seven earthquakes or above.
Second place was taken out by joint winners, Safe Space with their solution for safe, habitable, scalable, environments for moon’s first settlers, and L2 (squared) with their solution ‘Cosmic Clarity’ to clean up space debris.
UniSA’s ICC was the only ActInSpace organiser in Australia this year and was the first organisation to bring competition down under in 2018.
That year, a group of four won the ICC’s local competition before going on to win the international final in France, demonstrating Australia’s entrepreneurial talent and space innovation.
Representative of the 2018 winning team, Bez Mohammadi, says the competition is a key pillar in developing Australia’s commercial space sector and startup scene.
“ActInSpace was the steppingstone we needed as a team to take our idea to the next level,” Mohammadi says.
“Going from a concept developed in 24 hours to pitching in front of a global audience was an invaluable experience.
“That ActInSpace journey was what ultimately convinced us to venture into the world of startups and it was the perfect platform to prepare us for the ride ahead.”
UniSA’s Deputy Director of Business Incubation Jasmine Vreugdenburg says this means that ThincSpace will be competing against a highly competitive pool of international talent.
“We are very proud to represent Australia’s emerging commercial space sector on a global scale next year, and showcase the young talent we have here in Adeliade,” she says.
“The team will travel to Cannes in the south of France in February, where they’ll also get to network with key industry representatives.
“Since bringing ActInSpace to Australia, we have seen competitors forge and develop their own space startups.
“This is why we love hosting it here in Adelaide – we are creating opportunities for local talent to have a go at these global challenges which can open up new opportunities for their future.
“We look forward to seeing where ThincSpace goes in the next year… we are expecting amazing things!”
The ICC sincerely thanks all of the sponsors of this local event, Platinum Sponsors: Accenture and the Australian Space Agency, Gold Sponsors: the South Australian Space Industry Centre and the SmartSat CRC and SIlver Sponsors: Southern Launch, Optus, Amazon Web Services and Stone & Chalk.
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Media is welcome to contact the ICC team below to arrange interviews with the winning team, Bez Mohammadi and Jasmine Vreugdenburg.
Media contact: Georgia Minarelli T +61 413 314 726 E georgia.minarelli@unisa.edu.au
Event information: Samantha Dawes M: +61 457 289 282 E: samantha.dawes@unisa.edu.au
