With a strong and innovative development community in Australia, low set-up costs for tech start-ups, and relatively short time-to-market for IT products and services, developing global technologies should be a national priority, Dr Shariv said.
“It would be good for Australia if the economy was a lot more diversified.”
Having joined the Sydney University’s Business Liaison Office as director last year, Dr Shariv is an expert in taking innovative products to market and extracting maximum commercial value from developments – something Australian researchers have sometimes struggled to do successful.
Before joining Sydney University Dr Shariv was chief executive of Yeda Research and Development Company, the commercial arm of the Weisman Institute of Science in Israel. He
“More than any other filed, IT has the potential to generate hundreds of new companies that will grow and take over global markets from their Aussie headquarters, and bring wealth back home,” he said.
Dr Shariv, who holds a PhD in Physics, will discuss commercialisation strategies for the Australian market as a speaker at the Cebit Connect Keynote series at the CeBIT Australia conference and exhibition at Darling Harbour from May 1-3.
He said the presentation would include case studies of how companies that started as nothing more than novel concepts could be taken by passionate entrepreneurs – and some small amount of seed investment – to become global IT companies.
Despite Australia’s seeming poor track record in commercialising new technologies, Dr Shariv is upbeat about what can be achieved in this country.
Meanwhile, the Australian Trade Commission (Austrade) has committed its biggest presence ever at CeBIT Australia, conducting 20 seminars on various aspects of overseas opportunities over the three-day event.
The seminar series is one of three strands to the Austrade presence at the show. In addition to Export Alley – which is a special stand to give small, innovative Australia companies a low cost option to get to CeBIT and get in front of potential buyers – Austrade will also host an “International Business Lounge.”
The International Business Lounge is an area where Austrade officials will provide business matching services, to ensure that local companies and overseas visitors get a chance to meet.
Twelve business development managers from 12 different Austrade missions around the world will attend CeBIT, with eight bringing delegations from the country missions.
Business development managers will attend from Austrade offices in Mexico City, Kuala Lumpur, Auckland, Santiago, Jakarta, Port Moresby, London, Prague, Dubai, Cairo, Osaka and New York.
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