Grants awarded to 17 SMEs to help solve ‘government challenges’ and cut red tape

Businesses are being paid by the federal government to trial tech solutions with a view to reducing bureaucratic processes described as ‘regulatory burdens’.

In a joint statement on Monday, Minister for the Public Service and Minister Assisting the PM&C Ben Morton, Assistant Minister for Industry Development Senator Jonno Duniam, and Minister for Industry Angus Taylor announced that $1.6 million would be awarded for a series of feasibility studies to cut red tape.

A total of 17 startups and SMEs received the funding in the latest round of the Business Research and Innovation Initiative (BRII) to support the early-stage development of solutions designed to cut regulatory burdens their businesses face.

“This round of BRII is focused on making compliance with regulation as simple as possible, and technology has great potential to reduce the regulatory burden for businesses,” Morton said.

The regulatory challenges targeted in this BRII round included export livestock health (five grants), asbestos testing (five grants), market disclosure by listed companies (five grants), and assurance for marine autonomous systems (two grants).

A further grant of up to $1 million will then be available for projects deemed to be ‘the most successful’ to develop their prototype or proof of concept.

Minister Taylor said the program was backing the great ideas of Australian industry.

“These grants give businesses the opportunity to work with government to test ideas — which can solve challenges faced by governments but also support the growth of innovative start-ups,” Taylor said.

Grants totalling $499,804 will examine how to improve export livestock welfare. One of the projects will work on developing a new monitoring system by 3 Aim Solutions, designed using sensors, combined with digital and remote data algorithms, to monitor the livestock.

Another set of projects worth $482,734 includes a project by Bedrock AI to develop its language processing technology to analyse listed company market disclosures in real-time.

Duniam added that the government money was an investment to develop and grow capability in local private industry.

“When it comes to problem-solving Australian businesses are amongst the best in the world, and this funding will harness and grow that capacity while solving challenges of national and indeed international significance,” he said.

This article was first published by The Mandarin.