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Filed Under: BUSINESS, STUDY Tagged With: internships, students

Student interns make their mark with Precinct companies

A cybersecurity forum proved popular with students looking for internships

As students prepare to start the second university trimester for 2022, a culture of internships within Precinct companies is building, as start-ups and scale-up companies see the benefits of testing out student talent for future employment and students realise the opportunities to be exposed to a broad range of projects on offer in smaller companies.

It’s been a busy first six months of 2022 and 23 student interns have played their part in supporting the growth of several Cohort Innovation Space companies.

Cybersecurity, data science and software development are all areas of strong industry growth and the appetite for up-and-coming talent is growing just as quickly.

Since being named in Forbes 2021 list of top cybersecurity start-ups, SecureStack, a cybersecurity company focused on helping app developers make their products more secure, has seen significant growth, including working with their customer AustCyber, the federal body in charge of cybersecurity policy in Australia, to help small businesses understand cybersecurity challenges. AustCyber’s use of the SecureStack platform has grown by more than 300% since they onboarded in 2021, while SecureStack has also partnered with AWS and GitHub to offer services on their native marketplaces, and linked with of the world’s largest cyber insurance companies to help their customers be more prepared for cyber attacks.

Student interns have helped meet business demand, according to SecureStack’s founder and CEO Paul McCarty.

“The main benefit of having interns is that we can help build out the specific skill set that we need, that is generally hard to find in market here, which is a software engineer with cybersecurity experience,” Paul says.

“The most important thing we look for in intern candidates is drive and hunger to learn. If we find that all the other stuff is easy, as you can train and educate them, but that yearning to learn is NOT something you can train in someone, they need to have it to begin with.”

Bringing companies and students together to discuss cybersecurity careers

Paul shared his advice in a panel discussion that attracted 45 Griffith University IT students across undergraduate and postgraduate programs, all keen to learn about the benefits of small company experience over a corporate placement in kick-starting their careers.

He was joined on the panel by fellow Cohort cybersecurity firm CyberAudit Team and other industry representatives, along with Professor Paulo de Souza, Head of Griffith’s IT School, who indicated student numbers across IT programs had jumped 130% above pre-Covid levels.

“We will opportunistically hire,” Paul MCarty says. “We use internships to recruit talent and we will make openings for the right people.”

“One of my former interns who is now working with us said it best: ‘I love working here because I get to be across all of the things that SecureStack does and I can find areas that need help and I can fill that gap and become an indispensable member of the team.’ I couldn’t have said it better!”

SecureStack took on five interns, including Faisal Imtiaz, who is set to graduate as a software engineer this year.

“When I was offered an internship at SecureStack, I liked and understood their business objective and they were working on two things that I liked the most; Security and Programming,” Faisal says.

Over and above the technical experience are the key real-world learnings – “I am learning how a tech-based company works and how multiple people collaborate on a single project. How communication and management is done in a development-focused environment.”

The team from Edify Medical at last year’s LuminaX pitch night

For Edify Medical, a health tech start-up and graduates of last year’s inaugural LuminaX Accelerator program, taking on students for group projects across two trimesters is key to their philosophy to drive local employment, rather than seek remote talent overseas.

Edify Medical is creating a medical education platform to support healthcare workers in different languages who don’t currently have equality of access to up-to-date medical training resources, with their EdifyMed app.

Creative Director and Chief Technology Officer Adrian Marshall says 12 Griffith students are collaborating across two key projects to assist their platform development.

“The students we are working with on the group projects have come up with some fantastic ideas and we look forward to seeing how they execute them,” Adrian says.

“We’re excited to work with the students and look forward to building a relationship with Griffith moving forward.”

Data-driven technology company Datarwe has actively supported interns at both undergraduate and PhD level – they profile some of their current and former interns (some who are now working for them) here.

Meanwhile, Cohort recently caught up with Griffith international student Tay Ninh from Vietnam to talk about how he landed an internship gig at one of Australia’s fastest-growing start-ups Desygner.

The Precinct Office has embedded a resource within Cohort to facilitate connections between companies and Griffith University students.

Filed Under: People of the Precinct

Congratulations and farewell Professor Mario Pinto

Professor Mario Pinto

The partners in the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct extend their congratulations to Director of the Precinct, Professor Mario Pinto. Professor Pinto steps down as Director today, and will commence as Vice-President (Research and International) at the University of Manitoba in his native Canada in October.

Professor Pinto is an internationally renowned chemical biologist, academic, and the former President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, who served as Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) at Griffith University from early 2020. From July 2021, Mario was Director of the Precinct Office, leading an active team and working with Precinct partners to drive company, developer and partnership attraction.

The Precinct welcomes international company representatives in August 2021

During his time in the Precinct Office, Mario has had an extraordinary impact in working to accelerate the recruitment of high-technology companies to the Precinct, including ASX-listed blockchain software developer Tymlez; US-headquartered MedTech BiVACOR, which is developing a world-first rotary artificial heart; and Silicon Valley-based Precise Light Surgical. His model of providing a ‘soft landing pad’ to global companies has been instrumental in assembling an array of exciting partnerships, leveraging Precinct strategic capabilities. He also saw the development and approval of the Precinct Strategic Plan (2022-2027), which will be released shortly, expanded efforts to link student interns to Precinct companies, and has cemented the strong relationship with City of Gold Coast elected representatives.

With Hon Di Farmer MP, Minister for Employment and Small Business and Minister for Training and Skills Development (left) and Ms Camilla Jansen, Managing Director, Business News Australia, at a recent industry leaders’ event

Mario’s departure comes at a time when the Precinct has achieved many of its initial aims, a point emphasized in the Queensland Innovation Places Discussion paper, which identified the GCHKP as one of the state’s leading precincts. Subsequently, he was invited to be a member of the Innovation Places Stakeholder Reference Group, for the Queensland Department of Tourism, Innovation and Sport, providing strategic input into the corresponding 10-year-strategy. Now with its imminent release, the Precinct partners can take the opportunity to address the ongoing role and shape of the Precinct Office, a process that will be launched over the next month. Mr Craig Rowsell will continue as Manager of the Precinct Office while this process is undertaken.

The Precinct Office and the Precinct Partners thank Professor Pinto for his contribution to the success of the Precinct, and wish him well in his new role at the University of Manitoba.

Filed Under: Uncategorised

Congratulations Dr Hal Rice – Gold Coast Australian of the Year

Associate Professor Dr Hal Rice

Ask Interventional Radiologist Dr Hal Rice to respond to his recent award as Gold Coast Australian of the Year 2022 and he’ll begin by humbly sharing the honour with his team – just as he credits his world-leading impact on stroke patients to a dedicated team effort to always put patients first.

World-leading clinical research and training recognised

“It is a huge honour and I think it is really nice the recognition not just for myself but for my team who work tirelessly to provide the service we do at Gold Coast University Hospital, and really for health in general, it recognises the whole healthcare community,” Dr Rice says.

“We’re part of an international community, in research and teaching, and in giving back and this benefits our patients first and foremost, and our international reputation means we’re working with most of the multinational companies, many of who are moving to the Gold Coast because they see the benefits of what we are doing and planning in the health and knowledge precinct, it ticks a lot of their boxes.”

For the past two decades, Associate Professor Dr Hal Rice has operated a comprehensive Interventional Neuroradiology service at Gold Coast University Hospital, which he co-founded with colleague Dr Laetitia de Villiers, literally pioneering a new life-saving field of medicine for patients with severe Brain Aneurysms and Acute Ischaemic Stroke.

But as young medical intern, he almost took a more conventional career path as an orthopaedic surgeon, before discovering the then-fledgling field of minimally-invasive surgery – innovation it seems is in his blood (or blood vessels to be very, very precise)!

Hal completed his fellowship in Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology before undertaking a prestigious Neuroradiology Fellowship at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai, New York, and the rest is his impressive history of world-class innovation – trialing the latest devices from around the world, delivering highly-specialised training, undertaking world-first robotic procedures, and together with Laetitia, saving lives.

In our video below, Hal explains how they use high-quality imaging to navigate up into the brain through the blood vessels, utilising tiny devices to repair life-threatening damage and working with innovative 3D printed models to train overseas specialists.

Business is also in Hal’s blood – 15 years ago he co-founded the successful QScan Radiology Group, which now operates medical imaging and interventional radiology clinics across Australia. He’s also held Associate Professor roles at both Griffith and Bond Universities for the past 8 years, further demonstrating his strong commitment to cutting-edge clinical research and education, while he joined the board of the Gold Coast Titans in early 2020, and most recently became a member of the Griffith University Council.

Hal and Laetitia co-hosted the 2015 World Federation of Interventional and Therapeutic NeuroRadiology on the Gold Coast, bringing 1200 of their specialist colleagues from around the globe to a conference that injected several million dollars into the local economy, and they haven’t stopped since.

A training session underway in Gold Coast University Hospital

In 2020, they successfully performed only the second robotically-assisted aneurysm removal in the world, and have since completed the largest caseload globally for this cutting-edge procedure.

While the pandemic has made training opportunities more difficult, the pair is now ramping up their teaching of overseas physicians from the Asia Pacific, including co-hosting more than 80 colleagues with global medical device company Medtronic next month, in what will be the first medical conference to be held at the new The Langham Gold Coast luxury hotel. And there are more exciting plans to come – watch this space!!

Listen to Dr Rice as he shares his story and vision in the latest episode of Lumina’s HealthTech Talks podcast series and prepare to be inspired!