What is the Unearthed Event?
The Unearthed Event provides individuals and start-ups in software and technology development the opportunity to apply their abilities competitively to a range of challenges encountered by Australia’s mining industry. The Unearthed Perth event was held over 54 hours from the 20th to the 22nd March 2015.
Participants have the opportunity to work with industry and government data and to be mentored by industry insiders. The winning groups acquire for themselves and their prototypes the attention of the leaders in the industry.
Nano Solutions Takes Out 2nd Prize
The Nano Solutions team, Nanocore, winners of the acQuire Solving Real-time Geochemistry QA/QC challenge, took second prize overall at the Perth event. The team, consisting of Petr Cervenka, Saulo Onze and Ritchie Young, walked away with a prize of $1500 cash and $2000 in Amazon Web Services credits for their innovative real-time QA/QC process management tool.
The Challenge
Of the five challenges presented at the Unearthed Event, acQuire presented participants with the Solving Real-time Geochemistry QA/QC challenge, the goal of which was to innovate a way of rapidly categorising and communicating mineral sampling errors and resolutions.
Nanocore’s approach was to identify key flaws in both the process management and interface design of real-time geochemistry QA/QC systems. Nanocore realised that current systems are time consuming and difficult to use, providing too much data and displaying it poorly. By investigating the nature of target users and the diversity of their needs and expertise, Nanocore were able to target numerous key areas for advancement.
The Solution
Nanocore’s solution to the acQuire Solving Real-time Geochemistry QA/QC challenge revolutionised the system in two key ways:
- Their real-time QA/QC process management tool is intuitive and easy to use, more efficient for both users and maintenance.
- Their system cut resolution time down from months to a matter of days.
To begin with, rather than presenting users with an overwhelming quantity of mineral sample information, Nanocore’s tool presents the user only with the necessary information, identifying the sample as good or bad. This has the advantage of enabling the development of an intuitive interface, accessible to all users and requiring no specific additional training. This approach also facilitates the continual updating of the underlying algorithms without requiring any changes to the user interface.
By incorporating the expert analysis of the sample data into the real-time QA/QC process management tool, Nanocore were able to considerably reduce the timeframe between analysis and resolution.
See it your self at unearthed.nano.rocks
Summing Up
Nanocore’s final, winning result is a fast, easy to use tool that substantially advances usability and efficiency in the resolution and communication of sample analysis.
Steve Mundell from acQuire Technology Solutions, who was on hand as a mentor to the Nano Solutions team, described the Unearthed Event as “an investment in our future as much as that of the people participating in the challenge”.
This is evident from the fact that the prototypes produced at the event are now under consideration for the RIIT’s Accelerator start-up program and its $70,000 seed investment fund, aimed at commercialising the product for the resource industry.
So the Nano Solutions team finds itself among the best of this esteemed group of innovators and developers, demonstrating the company’s leading ability to produce innovative and effective solutions for increasing any company’s productivity.