In Founder Focus we introduce entrepreneurs and innovators working on our next generation of new business startups, social enterprises and small businesses.
At a glance
Founder: Tom Brownlie
Business: ingenum
Founded: 2017
HQ: Otago
Can you tell us a bit about your business?
We are a veterinary data science company that has developed “Sentinel-AI” – a commercial artificial intelligence (AI) that detects patterns of clinical signs of disease hidden in agricultural data. Sentinel-AI is an innovative, disruptive, early-warning system for governments, food producers, agritech and agrihealth companies and rural professionals to expedite agricultural disease diagnosis.
There are explicit economic, ethical and welfare advantages of detecting agricultural disease earlier. The recent diagnosis of foot and mouth disease in Southeast Asia is a timely reminder of the importance of early warning surveillance activities for nearby countries. Neither Australia nor New Zealand, as nearby countries, have comprehensive syndromic surveillance platforms and hence, early warning systems are increasingly valuable to national biosecurity.
While disclosing data and losing customer trust creates a conflict for potential data sharing partners, Sentinel-AI is built sympathetic to this data custodianship and has resolved many of these issues permitting partners to safely and competitively contribute. In fact, within these aggregated, anonymised networks of agricultural data, patterns of normal health and production are described that have advantageous commercial value for data-sharing partners. So, while we remain committed to the core duty of detecting disease, we are also committed.
What’s the backstory for your business idea?
In 2018, we built our first syndromic surveillance platform for an Australian State Government. Insights from this project have helped us intimately understand this problem. It is the motivation for seeking deep tech solution.
What programmes, learning or mentoring have been of assistance so far?
- We have been lucky to successfully win an R&D grant from Callaghan Innovation to develop and train the model.
- We have a close relationship with StartupDunedin who have been highly supportive.
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