- Field Notes HBTX - A crazy idea, a real problem, a team of near-strangers building a business prototype from scratch. A few months ago, none of this existed. Just a banana nobody wanted and a hunch that it could become something more. Yet, at the beginning of August, we submitted a real application to a national startup programme for Australian-grown innovation. And we have a project serious enough to have real industry conversations. The problem that shouldn’t exist - but… 20 August 2026
- Field Notes The day the SHRMP students went fully AquaCore For some university projects, the students never have to leave the room. Or look up from their computer. Especially if it’s pure “knowledge work”. They get an assignment, they may meet on campus, they may present to the person who gave them the assignment, and get a mark. A SHRMP.bio project is not that. And our students went for a… 13 August 2026
- Field Notes The day we made strangers eat our Banana ideas Four biotech students, three prototypes, and the fist Banana Innovation Day that Melbourne - the whole world - has ever seen. Today my HBTX students ran the first ever BioScience Banana Innovation Day — an event they booked, invited, and built themselves — and put a Blue Banana, a Tuxedo Banana, and three banana sounds in front of a first… 12 August 2026
- Field Notes A third of Australia's bananas never make it to a shelf Australia throws away about a third of its bananas before they reach a shelf. Not because they’re bad. Because they’re bent, or freckled, or too short, or too long, or curved the wrong way for the box. The fruit is fine — it fails an audition, not a food-safety test. Roughly 30% of the crop is turned away for looking… 28 July 2026
- Field Notes The future of seafood is on land. And now it needs a lab. In late 2024 I sat down to work out what the world would eat in 2050, and whether SHRMP.bio was a silly idea. The work is all online — four scenarios, the population maths, the trade picture, the technology trends. Around seven billion people in cities by mid-century, a lot of them old. Arable land moving north and south, out… 24 July 2026
- Field Notes Why a shrimp company got me interested in education In mid 2024 I spent a few months building scenarios for what the world eats in 2050. Twenty-five years out. Which sounds like a long time, and reads like somebody else’s problem, right up until you turn it around. Twenty-five years back is Y2K. Most people my age can tell you where they were that night. It does not feel… 22 July 2026
- Field Notes From Brain Implants to Wilderness Trails: A Day at Outdoors Victoria 2025 "By 2050, there will be quite a few people with brain-computer interfaces out there. And I think this could be a problem - because we may not know what is uploaded into their brains anymore and how this could unconsciously change their behaviour." The most forward-looking strategic thinking I have seen in a long time around here. Not a biotech… 19 August 2025
- Field Notes Aurora Sailing... into the Unknown (following Curiosity) For now, this is just a teaser of a story that could not have been planned this way, and it is not entirely clear yet where it will take us. What started a few years back with the simple idea of “let’s buy a small boat so we can go sailing as a family” is turning into an adventure in… 13 August 2025