THE impact landmark projects like Elizabeth Quay will have on Perths traffic congestion threatens to hurt the citys future economic productivity, one of WAs leading business figures has warned.

Michael Chaney, the chairman of National Australia Bank and Woodside, said with careful planning Perth could “easily” accommodate a population of 3.5 million people, but congestion had emerged as the key challenge.

The University of Western Australia chancellor said “natural bottlenecks” at the Narrows, Canning and Fremantle bridges means transport infrastructure must be planned 20 to 30 years into the future, rather than just a few years ahead.

“I’ve been concerned about the Elizabeth Quay development, for example. I think putting the tunnel under where Riverside Drive, although it would have been costly, would have been a much better solution to what we now see,” Mr Chaney said.

“If you think also of the two-waying of streets in Perth, the thrust seems to be ‘let’s make this a livable city where people like to walk around and so on’. That’s all very well, but the actual purpose of the CBD is overwhelming a place to work and getting into it and out of it remains a very important factor.

“Central city developments should take account of that fact, that it’s going to continue to be the main working place.

“You don’t want to get a situation like Oxford in the UK where they made it a much more livable and pedestrian-friendly city, with the result that it can take you an hour to get in there.

“In order to do it properly you’ve got to have alternative means of going round the city. I’m concerned that bottlenecks will form in other places because of those developments if they’re not carefully planned.”

The cost of living, and in particular housing, also hurts Perth’s competitiveness, Mr Chaney said, saying it remains a “shock” to newcomers and calling on the State Government to fast-track land supply.

“If you look at cities like Houston where there has been pretty unlimited by a very liberal regime, prices have really not risen much at all and housing’s much more affordable,” he said.

“We have got a situation here where it takes years to get approvals and develop land. There’s a backlog and a supply shortage, which seems extraordinary.”

Despite the slowdown in the resources sector, he believes there is still reason for optimism, predicting WA’s economy will continue to grow faster than any other state.

Mr Chaney cited agriculture and tourism as emerging industries and said Perth should be a “world leader” in resources technology and higher education. However, none of those would supplant resources as WA’s main economic driver, he said.

There’s oodles of entrepreneurial spirit here and currently it’s mostly being applied for benefit of the resources sector.

“As we make the most of our education, resources and technology skills, we can become more sophisticated and one area we can do better is cultural development,” he said.

“If we want to really be on the map as far as international views are concerned, we need to have a stronger cultural sector here. If you look at what’s happened in Queensland, both in education and culture, it’s an illustration of what can be done with State Government determination.”

Private philanthropy will also likely play a bigger role, citing support by Andrew Forrest of arts bodies, as will public-private partnerships in delivering public infrastructure such as toll roads.

Western Australian of the Year David Flanagan, chairman of Atlas Iron, said after the mining boom, the state was now experiencing “business as usual”.

“WA, by and large, is still a wonderful place to come and take a risk, try to start a business and try and create something. With more people and more diversity hopefully we can better connect people to each other,” the Murdoch University chancellor said.

“We should be able to innovate, provide more solutions and maybe, if enough people think about it now, we’ll able to diversify the economy a bit more. I reckon the answers are out there in the people themselves.

“One of the first things I’d like to see are more people talking to people who are different to themselves, more people talking to people in different business sectors, different public agencies, to put together opportunities.

“There’s oodles of entrepreneurial spirit here and currently it’s mostly being applied for benefit of the resources sector. That same entrepreneurial spirit can be better applied in education, in agriculture and generally in technology and innovation and the way we service our Asian region.”

Deidre Willmott, CEO of peak business body CCIWA, said as iron ore and LNG moves into long-term production it would continue to create economic activity for decades to come.

Foreign investment, in particular from China, is flooding into agribusiness, while major international retailers Zara, Topshop and Aldi are all opening stores and creating jobs in the city.

Perth companies are at the cutting edge of technology

From 3D printing to augmented reality and harnessing wave power, Perth companies are at the cutting edge of technology. PETER LAW looks at how they could soon be a part of our everyday lives.

Virtualiis

Imagine walking through Perth CBD and being able to visualise how the fast-changing city centre could look in the near-future.

This is the thought that struck website designer and artist Becky Lee while she was searching for an inner-city apartment.

The Subiaco-based 30-year-old Edith Cowan University graduate this month launched 3D marketing tool Virtualiis.

It allows architectural plans or models to “jump” off a printed page when viewed through the smartphone app.

Virtualiis uses augmented reality technology, which overlays virtual information - in this case a 3D model of a building design - onto a real-life environment.

“I thought I didn’t want to research a website to see what an apartment was going to look like or what the suburb was going to be in 10 to 20 years time, I just wanted to walk down the street and see it - and that’s definitely possible,” she said.

Virtualiis was used to promote the Telethon Juvenile Diabetes Family Centre and this weekend it is being used to showcase the new Perth City Library in 3D.

Augmented reality has existed for 20 years, but only recently became a viable commercial tool as personal devices such as smartphones have become more powerful.

“We understand information coming from our computer screens. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, they designed that and everybody uses that interface intuitively,” she said.

“They’ve done the same thing with mobile devices, but we’re in a new era now where our environments are becoming our user interface. where everything around us can share information with us.

“I have absolutely no doubt it will become common technology, probably sooner than we believe.”

Download the iPhone App and point it at the image on your screen. Alternatively, download and print the PDF

Renewable is the future of power globally and we are missing out on opportunities in Australia at the moment

Carnegie Wave Energy

AFTER a decade of research and $100 million, a wave farm off the WA coast is just weeks away from being switched on.

Fremantle-based Carnegie Wave Energy is waiting for flat seas to deploy three giant buoys 3km off Garden Island, south of Perth.

Depending on the weather, the installation of the first 11 metre diameter buoy could be as soon as this month, the company’s CEO Dr Michael Ottaviano said.

Once in place, the Perth Wave Energy Project will immediately start converting ocean swell into renewable power and freshwater for the HMAS Stirling naval base.

Anchored to the sea floor, the fully submerged buoys work by bobbing with the waves to move pumps that pressurise water.

Delivered onshore by an underwater pipe, the high-pressure water will drive turbines to generate electricity, with the water desalinated via reverse osmosis.

Calm waters are needed for safe installation and to ensure the technology is operating as planned before the southwest gets hit by another weather front.

The culmination of 10 years of work, Dr Ottaviano said the groundbreaking flagship project would prove the viability of the technology.

“It makes WA standout uniquely from the rest of the world because there have been so many attempts to do what we’re doing right now and so many failures, we will be the first ones to get it right,” he said.

Ironically, it comes at a time when the sentiment around renewable energy investment in Australia “is as negative as it has been in a decade”, Dr Ottaviano said.

He said the situation, which has seen investment “fall off a cliff”, is being driven by political uncertainty around clean energy.

“There is no doubt renewable is the future of power globally and we are missing out on opportunities in Australia at the moment,” he said.

The medical 3D printing world is coming forward in leaps and bounds

3D Printing Studio

Mud huts are being printed in Italy and concrete houses in China.

A Japanese man this week became the first known person to be jailed for manufacturing a printed gun.

And in New York, a fashion house has designed a pair of plastic high heels that can be printed in-store or at home.

While 3D printing is still in its infancy in WA, it seems the technology’s potential is only limited by imagination.

From an office in Fremantle, 3D Printing Studios is churning out everything from prototype parts for mining companies, to models for students and even glasses frames.

Opened in May by Angus Deveson and Jon Snelgrove, the studio’s seven printers create products by fusing layers of plastic based on a computer-aided design.

Just this week a Perth man with a prosthetic leg who wanted to have a more natural look when wearing trousers visited the studio.

A scan was taken of his existing leg and, using computer software, the image was flipped or mirrored to recreate the lost limb.

“He doesn’t have to worry about getting something that might not quite fit him, it’s exactly designed for him, it’s scanned using his leg so there is nothing else like it,” Mr Deveson said.

3D printing will eventually become common place, Mr Deveson believes, from printing unique toys to rubber shoes and even organs.

“The medical 3D printing world is coming forward in leaps and bounds. The ultimate goal is you print replacement organs, but the near-future is the replacement hip-joints where they are exactly sized for the patient,” he said.

“The real cost, apart from the energy use, is the titanium powder and you only use the powder that you want for that part so it’s not actually that expensive compared to traditional manufacturing.”

Any form of communication which is going to take too long is not viable, so we’ve tried to bridge that gap

Today We Learned

Two WA primary schools will be at the forefront of innovation when they trial a locally developed technology designed to improve parent engagement.

Today We Learned, the brainchild of website developer Jason O’Neil, is an app which allows teachers to update 60 parents in just five minutes.

While most schools give report cards, the app is designed to give parents a daily update on classroom activities and provide conversation starters for the home.

“For parents, a lot of the time they feel they only hear about how their child is going in the report card or if something has gone wrong,” Mr O’Neil, who has worked with schools and teachers for the past decade, said.

“You don’t want to blame the school for that, but the reality is teachers are pretty stretched already. Any form of communication which is going to take too long is not viable, so we’ve tried to bridge that gap.”

His original idea was to create digital schools diary for students, but from speaking to teachers he saw the potential for greater parent engagement to improve a child’s achievement.

The app will be trailed by two WA and two Victorian schools until the end of the year, ahead of a wider rollout.

Teachers will complete a form detailing the lessons learned each day and can also send private messages to parents about individual pupils.

It will be free for teachers and schools to use, while half of the charge for parents - which is still to be confirmed - will be donated back to schools.

Mr O’Neil has juggled working three days a week as a web developer while he brings his idea to fruition.

Based two days a week at start-up incubator Spacecubed, he recently received $25,000 in seed funding from the RAC WA’s SeedSpark program.

The mining people have a lot of spare capital and tech needs a lot of capital, so it’s a good fit

Triplify

WEBSITES and apps such as Google Maps and Tripadvisor have already revolutionised how we travel.

But a trio of Perth entrepreneurs believe they’ve spotted a gap in the market and have an ambition to take their idea global.

Matt Fontana, Damien Hatton (pictured left) and John Daniels are the team behind Triplify, a what’s on guide which aggregates event listings across 37 countries.

The co-founders were inspired to create Triplify, now based at shared office space Spacecubed, after Mr Fontana was stood-up by a date while travelling in London.

“There was an Usher concert playing at that time and she’d just found out about it on her way to see me through a street flyer,” he said.

“I thought there had to be a better way to find out about events while your travelling because they can make or break your trip.”

The company is in the final stages of raising $500,000, mostly from “angel investors” - private individuals who provide capital for business start-ups - from the mining sector.

“It’s an interesting shift of power in Perth. The mining people have a lot of spare capital and tech needs a lot of capital, so it’s a good fit,” Mr Fontana said.

“One (investor) is a managing director of an oil and gas company in Perth and they’re other investors who are employees in that sector.

“We sell the vision that Triplify will be the what’s on guide for the world. That we will disrupt how people discover events when they travel, we will change how people plan their travels and how they experience their trips.”

You’ve got so many starry-eyed people in Perth that still think they can be the next Andrew Forrest or setup a world leading company

iiNet founder Michael Malone

TWO decades after iiNet was born in the garage of his parents’ Padbury home, Michael Malone (pictured left) is once again starting from scratch in Perth.

In his first major role since quitting as iiNet CEO, having grown the internet provider into a $1 billion company, Mr Malone is back as chairman of IT security firm Diamond Cyber.

Founded by former Australian special forces personnel, the company launched six weeks ago at Spacecubed, a shared office hub in the CBD for start-up businesses.

Mr Malone, one of WA’s most successful entrepreneurs, has travelled the world since taking a sabbatical at the end of last year and then deciding to walk away from iiNet in March.

While he has climbed mountains in Argentina and explored the Amazon in Brazil, he remains excited by the prospect of being part of Perth’s burgeoning start-up scene.

“It’s got to be cool and interesting,” Mr Malone, who has reportedly sold $36 million worth of iiNet shares in the past 14 months, said of his motivation for returning to the business world.

“There is something about a brand new start-up where you are literally checking the bank account every week to see if you’ve got enough money to pay the staff the next week.

“Everyone in the business is multi disciplinary, they can all do each other’s jobs and they are all out their vying to make the business survive and be successful.

“It’s just a really exciting thing to be involved — it smells exciting.”

When he formed iiNet in 1993 there was little support for tech star-tups and the concept was so foreign in WA that the then 23-year-old couldn’t even get a bank loan.

In recent years Perth’s has seen an explosion of entrepreneurship, with Spacecubed now boasting more than 450 members at its hub on St Georges Terrace.

Mr Malone, who splits his time between Perth and the eastern states, believes there is a “different buzz about Perth”.

“In certain other Australian cities people grow up, complete university and do their degrees with the hope they can go and work for the government or for a multinational corporation,” he said.

“Whereas you’ve got so many starry-eyed people in Perth that still think they can be the next Andrew Forrest or setup a world leading company.

“There’s a sense of optimism and access to fast cash as well because so much of it is first generation cash.

“People use the words ‘The Wild West’ in a derogatory way I think, but the benefits of it is that sense of taking a risk and having a go. I don’t get that feeling in any other city.”

While he remains an iiNet shareholder, and customer, he has no involvement in the company he formed 21 years ago.

“I think I’m better designed for being in a start-up,” he said.

“I characterise myself as a crisis manager, so when things are broken I love to get in there and fix it, when there’s an audacious goal to go a seek, like extreme growth, I love being involved in that.

“I guess when things are a bit steady and nothing’s broken I’m more likely to go out and break things just so I’ve got something to fix. In the last year I was feeling like the business was in an excellent position and the next phase of growth wasn’t really clear, but certainly we had a couple of years where you could bank it that everything was going to be OK.

“The reality is too many CEOs outstay their welcome and leave when things are bad. Here was a chance for David to take over a well operated business which was in a good position and for the team to say, ‘where are we going to next?’.”

Diamond Cyber’s team also includes Ian McFarlane and Brent Kerr, of IT consultancy Ajilon, and Sven Ross, former IT operations and project manager for the Australian Army.

Mr Malone said he had witnessed first-hand the growing the threat of cyber attacks.

“You are seeing a lot of the attacks are for commercial advantage, foreign companies attempting to get access to local companies to be able to be able to get things like their quotes or pricing schedules,” he said.

“Certainly at iiNet it was a daily occurrence. Someone says the wrong thing on a social media channel and the guy at the other end decides to start blasting him with a ‘denial of service attack’ which ends up effecting a lot of other customers as well.

“Plus of course people trying to get access just for the hell of it. A lot of crackers when they’re trying to break-in they’re not necessarily seeking something, they’re just seeking the notoriety of being able to break into a well-secured system.”