Mic Black is an inspiring human who can’t be defined by any one thing. His experience and skills span a variety of areas and domains, such as being a technical founder and entrepreneur, to deep tech inventor, to community and maker space builder and much more. 

Currently, he is the Co-founder of Rainstick, a startup that is combining indigenous knowledge systems and emerging bioelectric technology to encourage fungi and plants natural systems to grow faster, increase yield and target specific attributes. 

In this conversation with Mic, we explore his journey and story so far, how he has developed an impressive technical skill set, some of the inspiring ventures he’s been involved in, how Rainstick will revolutionise the future of food and how to approach building deeptech companies.

David is a powerhouse within the Australian innovation and commercialisation ecosystem. He holds a PhD in both biotechnology and business form the university of queensland. He started his career as a scientist and researcher in biotechnology and drug discovery before realising his real passion was in the business side of science. He has since held roles in commercialisation through Uniquest, the tech transfer office at UQ, worked as a general manager in innovation at CSIRO, started several companies and now also works as a venture capitalist supporting early stage tech companies.

I am thrilled to have David on this podcast to discuss all things innovation, commercialisation and building deep tech companies in Australia.

On todays episode of Futureneering I am joined by Michael Smart. Michael has spent his life dedicated to furthering research in hypersonics and scramjet technology. He spent 10 years as a research scientist in NASA Langley, and 15 years as a professor and chair of hypersonic propulsion at the University of Queensland. Michael has recently started a company called Hypersonix Launch Systems to commercialise his research and technology around scramjet-based propulsion systems. As cofounder and CTO of the brisbane based hypersonics startup, he is leading a team of 35 to tackle a bold and ambitious goal, which is to develop the worlds first reusable hypersonic vehicle, which will be used to further his mission of efficient and reliable access to space.

In this episode, Michael and I discuss his career so far as a hypersonics researcher, spinning off his company, the transition from academia to startups, what it takes to build hard things, the issue with commercialising deep tech in Australia and much more.

Tom is a theoretical quantum physicist, professor at the University of Queensland and cofounder of Analog Quantum Circuits. Tom has been a researcher in the field of quantum technology for over 20 years, and his research involves looking at device physics for solid state quantum computing, quantum error correction and quantum measurement and precision sensing. Recently, he has started a spin-off company from his research, which looks at designing and fabricating analog components and superconducting devices to allow the continued progression of solid state quantum computers. In this episode, I dive deep with Tom to discuss his background and research in quantum physics, why quantum technology is so important, the applications of various quantum technologies such as quantum computing, communications and sensing as well as his latest work at his startup, Analog Quantum Circuits. 

On todays episode of Futureneering I am joined by Dr. Pauline Pounds. Pauline is an Associate Professor in Mechatronics at UQ and a Senior academic at the Robotics Design Lab, which she cofounded in 2012. Pauline has previously contributed to some of the foundational work in developing multirotor drones. Now, she spends a lot of time working on various robotics and mechatronics research topics which include a variety of aerial vehicle technology, bipedal walking robots, stabilisation and control systems, applying deep reinforcement learning to robotic systems and finding innovative ways to make robots cheaper, better and more accessible. In this episode, we discuss Paulines background and journey into academia, her work at the UQ robotics design lab, some of the cool technology and research she is involved in and her thoughts on the commercialisation of university research. 

Billy Jeremijenko is the CEO and Co-Founder of Aquila. Aquila is a wildly ambitious startup attempting to develop the internet of energy. They are proposing to create a global energy transmission system using ground-based lasers attached to renewable generators, a constellation of highly reflective space-based mirrors with adaptable optical components, and specialised solar panels able to efficiently reconvert laser energy into electricity and feed it into various energy markets worldwide. 

Billy is a great example of a young, resourceful and creative innovator who doesn't shy away from a challenge to try and make the world a better place. In this podcast, we dive into Billy’s background and education, his unique insight that led to the inception of the company and some of advice around building a deep technology startup in Australia. 

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Dr. Larry Marshall is the former CEO of CSIRO, Australia's national science organisation. As part of CSIRO, he has spent the last 5 years championing the role of science and research organisations to not just invent new solutions, but to truly innovate, by taking their inventions from the lab into the marketplace. With this vision in mind, he helped to create two key initiatives within CSIRO - the ON accelerate program to teach scientists how to become entrepreneurs and Main sequence ventures - a venture capital arm of CSIRO to help fund translational research and science into real products and companies. Prior to this, Larry used his knowledge obtained from his PhD in Laser Physics to found 6 different startup companies in Silicon Valley. These startups aimed to commercialise his research in laser technology for a variety of applications, including medical devices, communications and semiconductors. Larry holds 20 patents and was the inventor of the worlds first eyesafe laser. Not only this, but Larry was instrumental in growing the venture capital community in Australia through his work with Blackbird Ventures and Southern Cross Ventures. Now, Larry is continuing his mission to help accelerate innovation and the commercialisation of great Australian science and research. His latest book, “invention to innovation” explores Larrys incredible career, journey and story and dives deep into how we can help solve Australia's innovation dilemma. 

Steve Baxter is an iconic and outspoken Queensland based entrepreneur, investor and overall champion of the startup ecosystem in Australia.

Steve is currently the Founder and Lead Investor at Beaten Zone Venture Partners, a Venture Capital (VC) firm with a focus on early stage defence technology startups that include both lethality and survivability systems. His mission here is to 'lionise' Australian entrepreneurs to develop new technology to enhance sovereign capability for Australian warfighters and beyond.

Steve is also the Executive Chairman at Ten13 as well as running his family office, Transition Level Investments.

Steve has previously founded and successfully exited two companies in the telecom space. One of these exits was for his company PIPE Networks, which sold to TPG for $373m in 2013.

Not only this, but Steve is the Founder of River City Labs - a startup space, hub and community located in Fortitude Valley in Brisbane that really helped to catapult the startup ecosystem in Brisbane and has since been the birthplace and catalyst for many successful companies.

Steve is also very well-known for his public appearance and feature as a "Shark" on the Shark Tank Australia television show.


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Dr. Joni Sytsma is a multidisciplinary aerospace engineer, who received her degree and PhD at the University of Florida. Joni is an exceptionally skilled and talented engineer, with her career spanning many roles within the defence and aerospace industry, including research into drone technology, developing guided weapon systems at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in the US, working on rockets and hypersonic vehicle during the HiFire program in Australia in collaboration with UQ and DSTG, working at Australia’s first space startup, Gilmour Space, and much more.

Now, Joni is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the USQ iLaunch program, where she manages $180M of grant capital to be allocated to advance the space sector in Australia. Joni is also the Founder of Outerloop Engineering, where she is developing Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC) systems for rockets and other aerial vehicles.

Hon Weng Chong is the CEO and Founder of Cortical Labs, a startup based in Melbourne that has created a "Brain on a chip" technology that ushers in a new paradigm of computing and ability to study the intricacies of the brain and how it functions.

Cortical Labs is combining biological neurons with traditional silicon electronics to create a fundamentally new form of computing, known as Biological Computing. They have shown the ability for this brain on a chip to learn how to play the game Pong in a simulated environment. 

This technology can currently help pharmaceutical companies study how new drugs affect the brain to help them get therapeutics and treatments to market, more quickly. In the future, this new form of computing could be used to advance Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), as well as develop truly autonomous systems and robotics that can learn from their environment.