Academic’s brainpower creates new income stream

Academic’s brainpower creates new income stream

‘Research commercialisation’ at the University of Canterbury (UC) has taken a step forward via the signing of a new agreement with Lincoln-based agricultural technology company, CropLogic Ltd.

In addition to providing access to software created in UC’s Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, the Intellectual Property Transfer Agreement (IPTA) enables CropLogic to seek advice from UC Associate Professor Richard Green, who has expertise in the field of computer vision.

Under the agreement, UC will develop analytical systems and processes to enable successful crop health monitoring using aerial images. CropLogic will use the UC technology and Green’s expert advice to enhance its existing on-line crop management system for potato growers – a cloud-based decision support tool that enables growers to optimise water and nitrogen use in order to achieve desired crop yields.

UC’s Business Development Manager John Duncan says this is the first time the University has negotiated an ongoing agreement for one of its academics to act as a consultant to a commercial entity.

“This is a win-win situation for everyone involved,” says Duncan.

“CropLogic gains access to Professor Green’s technology and advice to improve the service they provide to their customers, UC gains a new income stream and Green sees his research create real world benefits – and he is rewarded financially through our ‘share of benefits’ agreement.”

The technical details of the IPTA provide CropLogic with access to background intellectual property (BIP) created by Green and owned by UC, including algorithms to create real-time aerial image mosaicking and boundary detection, improved visual registration using natural features, image and video noise detection and removal, and signal-linear representation of colour, amongst other features.

Green says he is enjoying working with CropLogic and providing advisory services to support them automatically analysing aerial images.

“I am really impressed with CropLogic’s approach of going way beyond just analysing satellite images to incorporating growth models of plants. They are well ahead of other international competitors with the quality of information about crop health they offer – from daily image acquisition to superior image analysis,” says Green.

Although the IPTA is new territory for UC, Duncan says there is potential for additional agreements for using this specific BIP in other industries and for other UC academics to share their unique knowledge and expertise.

“The IPTA enables CropLogic to purchase the permanent, exclusive, right to use the UC BIP worldwide, but it is solely in the field of utilising aerial imaging to monitor arable crop health, so there is scope for the technology and advice to be used for other purposes,” says Duncan.

The ground-breaking IPTA came about through UC’s existing relationships with CropLogic and its cornerstone investor Powerhouse Ventures.

“Building industry connections is part of developing a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship at UC,” says Duncan.

“It’s about shifting from a sole focus on getting research published, to helping UC researchers commercialise the intellectual property they create, as well as bring benefits to New Zealand,” says Duncan.

The change is helping build the University’s reputation for doing useful things – useful for businesses, communities and environments.

ENDS

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