BY JESSICA ROUSE

The latest hub of innovation and technology has officially opened in Williamtown this morning.

The Williamtown Innovation Hub, also called “DSA-18”, will support the research and development of new technologies for the defence industry.
It’s a collaboration of the University of Newcastle with the support of the state government who contributed $1.5 million to the hub to drive innovation.
The hub has desks for both defence workers and university researchers, meeting rooms and will host networking events and seminars to provide opportunities for engagement with local and national companies in the defence, security, IT and transport sectors.
Parliamentary Secretary for the Hunter Scot MacDonald says the innovation hub will make the latest technologies available to researchers to develop bigger and better things.

“It’s really important that people have a place to incubate those ideas if you like and bounce them off colleagues who work in the industry and see if they’re adaptable and see if the commercialisation is possible and that can only happen if you’re working closely together,” said Scot MacDonald.

The Hunter region’s defence sector employs more than 4,600 people and contributes $1.3 billion to the region’s economy.

“This will get the academics and professors working out the hub making themselves available to people who have got ideas that might be picked up by the defence industry. A lot of the innovation really does come from if you like, grassroots level,” said Scot MacDonald.

Artists impression.