According to The Australian Financial Review, as Australian infection rates of COVID-19 plummet and business pushes for a return to normal, a Perth-based business created to try to save jobs may enable people to get back to work more quickly and safely.
GERMii was created in February, when founder Shan Patterson realised he needed to reinvent his data and computer disposal business if he wanted to keep staff in work during the pandemic.
He quickly set to work creating a product that could help his corporate clients sterilise their workplaces by using concentrated UV-C light to kill COVID-19 pathogens.
One of his business partners said, “I have an idea based on my experience using UV-C germicidal irradiation technology to sterilise water in villages in PNG", and they adapted that technology to work on hard surfaces rather than water.
The technology is already utilised in hospitals abroad and has proven to be more effective and faster than chemical products in killing the COVID-19 virus, as it kills the entire pathogen immediately.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/australian-made-uv-light-devices-could-help-businesses-reopen-faster-20200426-p54na0

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/uv-c.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, an emerging group of deep tech start-ups are pivoting their technologies and redeploying their staff to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, as the sector begins to treat the outbreak with a wartime mentality.
Entrepreneurs previously tackling problems as varied as occupant sensing, renewable energy and sexually transmitted infection detection have all adapted their businesses over the past few weeks to refocus their efforts on helping solve major problems in containing the coronavirus spread.
Because of the virus, it paused that rollout and the company has thrown its efforts into creating a small artificial intelligence-equipped, shoebox-sized device that sits on a tripod and measures a person's temperature in less than a second. The possibilities for screening the public for virus symptoms were obvious.
The company has already scored a contract with a major south-east Asian government's national border force and a large international airport outside of Asia, and its first Rapid Thermal Pre-Screeners are being shipped.
"The systems in airports require huge camera set-ups and cost around $15,000. Ours is far less expensive, more accurate and can be deployed quicker," Calumino co-founder Marek Steffanson said.
"As well as at airports, they can be used at hotel check-ins, offices, or in aged care centres. A person just looks at the screen and within one second it displays a green or red screen for if their temperature is above or below 37.5 degrees.
"We hope that in April we'll be able to deploy between 20 and 50 units – 50 being the best case if there's no more supply chain disruptions."
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https://www.afr.com/technology/start-ups-pivot-to-save-the-world-by-tackling-covid-19-20200327-p54egu

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/covid-19.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Australian researchers, who became the fastest vaccine developers in the world in 2009 by putting the first swine flu vaccine into humans in three months, are now working on one for COVID-19.
They have animal trials under way and expect the results in July. If successful, they will begin testing their candidate vaccine in humans.
If it proves safe and generates the right type of immune response, they say many people, particularly frontline medical staff, could conceivably be given the vaccine under trial conditions.
The team believes it has an advantage because it has an established platform that has proved safe and effective with other vaccines it has produced for outbreaks such as H5 and H7 bird flu.
“We started working on this pandemic platform in 2002," says Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, who has been researching vaccines for 20 years and leads the COVID-19 team from the Flinders University precinct.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/australian-team-s-advantage-in-the-covid-19-vaccine-race-20200403-p54gv2

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/5548352.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Melbourne-based biotech company Firebrick Pharma has developed a "disinfectant for your nose" that could be capable of reducing the amount of detectable coronavirus by almost 100 per cent.
In a report seen by The Australian Financial Review, laboratory tests in a test tube showed its nasal spray, Nasodine, reduced the amount of detectable coronavirus by 99.97 per cent and eliminated the infectious properties of any remaining virus.
The company, founded in 2012 by Betadine throat gargle creator Dr Peter Molloy, tested its nasal spray on the coronavirus on the basis that it kills viruses indiscriminately, so logically could be effective on the coronavirus – as well as SARS, MERS or influenza.
The catch is that the patented nasal spray, developed to-date as a combative measure against the common cold, is in the final stages of its phase three clinical trial and yet to be approved for use by any global regulators.
Dr Molloy is hoping to receive permission from the health department and the Therapeutic Goods Administration to make the nasal spray available in special conditions to healthcare workers at risk of exposure to the coronavirus.

https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/melbourne-company-creates-nasal-spray-for-coronavirus-20200220-p542ly

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/3027511.html 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, shares in ASX minnow Micro-X Ltd surged 29 per cent after the Adelaide-based manufacturer said it secured two orders from south east Asian governments seeking to use its X-ray technology to help diagnose the coronavirus.
The company’s first product, the Carestream DRX Revolution Nano, is an ultra-lightweight digital medical X-ray system for the expanding mobile X-ray market in hospitals. Micro-X said production has moved to full capacity to fulfil all these orders within four weeks.
CEO Peter Rowland said chest X-rays are a key tool in monitoring the progression of the pneumonia-like symptoms of severe coronavirus infection.
While the normal early-stage diagnosis of coronavirus is by a blood test, like with pneumonia, a chest X-ray is used to detect fluid in the lungs, particularly with patients presenting with severe acute respiratory distress.

https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/micro-x-surges-on-coronavirus-contract-wins-20200213-p540ln

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/8231665.html 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, an electronic shelf label tells the customers not only the price but the provenance – where the lamb or beef came from, whether it's grass-fed or organic – when it was made and how many calories it contains.
If the meal kit is close to its use-by date, the price on the electronic ticket might be a few dollars lower than it was earlier in the week, having been automatically updated by store staff.
The woman drops the meal kit as she scrambles to scan it with her smart phone to skip the checkout queue, but within seconds a robot scoots over to clean up the mess.
It’s not a scene from The Jetsons; it’s coming to a supermarket near you, and probably sooner than you think.

https://www.afr.com/business/retail/fmcg/the-robots-coming-to-an-aisle-near-you-20190711-p5267l
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If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/9773361

According to The Australian Financial Review, packing costs at the centre are half the cost of store selection, and mistakes are rare – order accuracy is 98.8 per cent – almost eliminating the need for vans to deliver replacements.
When Ocado opened the Erith CFC last May, among the scores of guests checking out the facility was a team from Coles, led by Alister Jordan, chief executive of Coles Online and Coles Express.
Coles was on a two-year global mission to find the best way to make its fast-growing online grocery business profitable.
Coles' online sales grew 30 per cent last year and will crack the $1 billion mark this year, but the business is yet to break even.
After 18 months of negotiations, Coles signed a long-term deal with Ocado  this week to use its so-called "smart platform" technology, which gives the supermarket access to the bee-hive fulfilment technology, a new online grocery website and home-delivery solutions, including last-mile routing – getting goods to their final destination.
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https://www.afr.com/business/retail/the-robots-coming-to-choose-your-groceries-20190328-p518dk

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/3304542 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group will consider diversifying into the autonomous transport sector and is eyeing a driverless future on public roads based on the miner's successes with the technology across its iron ore mining operations.
Fortescue said it was setting up an autonomous transport research and development centre in Karratha, in the resources-rich Pilbara region of Western Australia, aimed at accelerating the rollout of driverless vehicles in urban environments.
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https://www.afr.com/business/mining/fortescue-on-the-road-to-a-driverless-future-20190321-p51681

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1098904 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, farming insights business FluroSat graduated from Cicada Innovations' GrowLab in 2017 and is now scaling into the US.
Its product FluroSense uses the power of deep spectral insight to deliver early, accurate and actionable information on crop health and nutrition, drawing on the data it collects via hand-held devices, drones or earth observation satellites. The technology enables farmers to make better decisions about the management of their crops and to cut their water usage by up to 25 per cent while boosting yields by a quarter and using two-thirds of the usual amount of fertiliser.
FluroSat has its roots in the University of Sydney's "Inventing the Future" course. The project was born out of the founders' desire to find innovative solutions to complex problems of global scale and fascination with earth observation, the company says.

https://www.afr.com/news/special-reports/transforming-innovation-from-the-lab-into-business-20181108-h17oa7

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
​https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/5314758
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According to the Australian Financial Review, Infinite Water has provided the first HYDROXON unit to Bangladesh at no cost, on the back of an ongoing relationship it has had with the country since Mr Duta developed the initial technology while working on removing arsenic from groundwater there 12 years ago.
The first water-treatment system was set up in the village of Alampur, where 25 people have died in the past five years because of exposure to arsenic in the local water. About one in 12 people in the village of 3900 had been ill before the system was installed.
It is HYDROXON's first commercial trial and Dr Walczuk said she hoped the results would trigger more work in developing nations, as well as industrial contracts with manufacturers and agricultural companies, as the system could also be used to decontaminate waste water.
"At the global level the total water treatment market is around $700 billion today," Mr Marquard said. "But there are no dominant players in terms of the total market, with the biggest players still only having a very small percentage of the market."
The HYDROXON systems are able to produce 5000 litres to a million litres of clean water a day. The machines are highly energy efficient and can produce 200,000 litres powered from a household power point.

https://www.afr.com/technology/australian-water-treatment-startup-infinite-water-saving-lives-in-bangladesh-20181218-h198gs

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
​https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/3979088 
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