Trailblazer winners announced as 19 finalists line up

Nineteen finalists competed in the University of Wollongong’s annual Trailblazer innovation competition held yesterday evening (Thursday 31 July). Dr Allison Shorten was announced as the open winner, and the student winner was Jennifer Saville.

Now in its fourth year, the Trailblazer competition (run in conjunction with UniQuest Pty Ltd) was developed to reward and stimulate innovative thinking – in particular to encourage ideas and early-stage research with the potential to benefit the community, industry or business as well as generate a financial return.

The successful finalists are undertaking a wide-ranging array of research.

Dr Shorten, from the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, was announced open winner with her research focused on “Informed birth choices: Pregnancy decision support package”. Winner in the student category, Jennifer Saville, is from the Faculty of Science and won for her research on “A novel non-invasive technique for the diagnosis of dry eye”.

Runners up were Dr Chris Lukey from the Faculty of Engineering for “Polymer-based alternative to steel mesh for strata support in underground coal mines” in the open category, and Deirdre McGhee from the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences for her “Novel sports bra design” in the student category.

Highly commended open winner was Associate Professor Steven Roodenrys and Dr Stuart Johnstone from the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences for “NeuroCog-TS” shared with Dr Simon Moulton from the Faculty of Science for “In vivo site drug delivery: New technology to replace mulesing in sheep farming”; and the highly commended students were Annaleise Riethmuller from the Faculty of Education for “Jump start” and Guanghua Lian from the Faculty of Informatics for “Closed-form exact solution approach for pricing variance swaps”.

The competition was open to all UOW researchers and students. This year’s competition had finalists from the Faculties of Education, Science, Engineering, Commerce, Health and Behavioural Sciences, Informatics and Creative Arts.

The total prize pool for the awards is $14,000 with $5,000 going to the first-place winner overall and $3,000 to second place, along with specific students prizes of $2,000 and $1,000 (for first and second place). Four highly commended prizes, two worth $1,000 each and two worth $500 each, were also made.

In addition to the cash prizes, UOW will:

    • Assess the market potential of entries;

    • Assess the potential to protect any intellectual property embodied in the research outcome;

    • If appropriate, consider a strategy to protect the intellectual property based on the market potential of the research outcome;

    • Assist with packaging the research outcome to secure further investment, if it is considered commercially worthwhile; and

    • Assist with fundraising to progress the research outcome towards commercial milestones, if it is considered commercially worthwhile

Last reviewed: 1 August, 2008