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From killer proteins to AI tree cutting drones - UC was on display for the Canterbury Tech Monthly Meetup

10 June 2019
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UCE was packed to the brim as attendees from all over the Canterbury Tech sector came to hear what UC students and researchers are up to.

On the evening of Tuesday 4th June, UCE was buzzing with more than 100 excited Canterbury Tech members waiting to see presentations on new businesses and technology emerging from the UC community of technologists and entrepreneurs. The audience heard from an extensive range of speakers including UCE EY Summer Startup alumni, UC lecturers, HIT Lab researchers and UC PhD students.

Luke Campbell said “It was great to participate in Canterbury Tech's June event. There were a fantastic range of speakers who shared their work on some fascinating topics”. Luke’s company, Vxt, is developing a smart voicemail driven assistant that converts users' voicemails to text and automates administrative tasks. It was awesome to hear how far Vxt has come since the UCE EY Summer Startup programme! Luke was joined by two other Summer Startup alumni, Ollie Hunt and Rory Clifford who also spoke at the event. Ollie’s business, MedSalv, is focused on improving both financial and environmental sustainability in the NZ health sector, while Rory has developed a virtual reality training system for aerial firefighting operations.

The event showcased first hand the compelling and fascinating research that is being carried out at UC. Simon Hoermann and Tham Piumsomboon presented the work HIT Lab is doing in developing realistic, immersive gaming. It is clear this is a growth area for the future, given the recent investment of $7.7 million by UC and the New Zealand Government.

Sam Schofield impressed the crowd with his automated, lopper wielding drone. The drone is part of a research program to develop a swarm of autonomous, artificially intelligent pruning robots to service the forestry sector. Attendees were also treated to Michael Love’s presentation on killer proteins and Pouyan Jahinbin’s talk on the use of blockchain to improve trust in the agriculture supply chain.

If you have an interest in the development and deployment of new technologies we definitely recommend heading along to the next Canterbury Tech event! Students can go along for free, all you need to do is register for Canterbury Tech on the following link: https://canterburytech.nz/join/student-membership-application/


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