Swinburne opens new industry innovation precinct

Swinburne University of Technology has unveiled a new innovation precinct, including a $7 million redevelopment of a heritage fire station to serve as an industry collaboration hub.

The Hawthorn campus project features several research centres designed to bring students and academics together with businesses to stimulate innovation research.

Work at the precinct will particularly focus on commercialising research around the digitisation of workforces, the Internet of Things, and data science to produce better outcomes across diverse economic areas.

Professor Yang Xiang, dean of digital research and innovation, told iTnews that security is also one of the practical areas of study that sees fruitful collaboration between researchers and industry partners.

Xiang said the university had a partnership with ArtChain Global to use blockchain technology in the authentication and trade of art.

Further cybersecurity research is being undertaken in collaboration with Trend Micro.

“The current work with Trend Micro and ArtChain Global is application-driven,” Xiang said.

“We hope that the research outcomes will be used in real-life. For example, with Trend Micro we have been working on honeypot [operations] and also we’ve been working on analysing social network traffic to get some intelligence for security and privacy purposes.”

The precinct also features a ‘factory or the future’, which deputy vice-chancellor of research and development Aleksandar Subic claimed is the “first fully immersed Industry 4.0 facility”, enabled by a $135 million grant from Siemens.

“Because we are taking the time to understand innovation, what ignites and sustains it, we are changing the way we work and engage, moving Swinburne to the very forefront of research-led innovation,” Subic added.