GOVEA 2021

Victorian Exporter of the Year - Melbourne University

The University of Melbourne is a world leader in education, teaching and research excellence and consistently ranks as Australia's number one university, serving the needs of its evolving local community through excellence in education, research and engagement.

In addition to its domestic contributions, the University has also become increasingly global in its outlook and reach, allowing it to contribute to the well-being of international communities and institutions around the world. This history of internationalisation has underpinned the University of Melbourne’s success as an exporter.

Victoria’s international education sector is its largest service-based export, and the University of Melbourne is one of the most significant contributors to this exporting to over 140 countries.

The University of Melbourne offers a wide range of impactful international education programs. The numbers underlying the University’s export value and contribution to the Victorian and Australian economies demonstrate its position as a powerhouse exporter. As a public-spirited institution, the University is well known for its public contributions through research, teaching and learning and engagement. It is perhaps less well known domestically, however, for its international impact.

From partnering to conduct world-leading research, to welcoming international students and staff to campus, international engagement is embedded across their entire spectrum of activities.

Victorian Women in International Business Award - Samantha Cheetham – SDI Limited

Samantha Cheetham started her career at SDI in 1992 as a sales representative in Victoria.

In 1994, she became a Regional Sales Manager for SDI in the USA promoting SDI’s products to dentists in northern California. In 1995, Samantha became Vice President, Sales and Marketing, managing 15 salespeople and distributors all over the USA and Canada.

In 1996, Samantha became Director, Sales and Marketing growing SDI’s sales and ensuring strong market positioning in all key countries they were selling to. Samantha’s key roles were to ensure the aggressive sales targets in all regions were met, improve the global marketing position and that the overseas sales offices were running smoothly.

In 2014, Samantha became President of the North American business and Managing Director of SDI Germany. In 2016, Samantha became CEO and Managing Director of SDI Limited. She has been on the Board since 1996, SDI currently sells to over 100 countries globally.

Samantha’s current role as CEO has meant she must focus more on the strategic goals of the total company. Samantha is very focused on motivating her management team to achieve the company goals and recognises that teamwork, one of SDI’s key values, is the way that SDI will achieve its goals. SDI’s recent achievements have been all about the team working together to strive to succeed.

The company’s vision is to pioneer and drive the science of dentistry with a mission of innovating dentistry for better health.

Samantha and her team aspire for SDI to be one of the largest dental companies in the world.

Agribusiness, Food and Beverages Award - Select Harvests

Select Harvests is an ASX listed, integrated agribusiness and is one of Australia’s largest almond growers and a leading manufacturer, processor and marketer of nut products, health snacks and muesli.

The Select Harvests Food Division manufactures branded processed almonds and a broad range of snacking and cooking nuts, health mixes and muesli to key retailers, distributors and food processors domestically and internationally. Their leading brands are: Lucky, Sunsol, NuVitality and Soland which are distributed through the consumer market channels. The Renshaw and Allinga Farms are distributed into the wholesale and food processing channels.

Select Harvests is one of Australia’s largest almond exporters and continues to build strong relationships in the fast-growing markets of India and China, as well as maintaining established routes to markets in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. It aims to be a leader in the supply of better for you plant based foods.

Investing over $30m in their regional Victorian almond value adding facility these investments give Select Harvests the capacity and cost position to compete in key export markets and allow them to participate further up the value chain and further establish themselves into the rapidly growing China food processing industry, which has been dominated by USA suppliers to date.

Creative Industries Award - FanHub Media

FanHub Media are experts in delivering premium digital fan engagement products for the world's biggest sports leagues, sports media companies, and brands that sponsor sports events.

Fanhub Media deliver a wide range of digital fan engagement products for the sports industry, such as fantasy games, footy tipping, voting applications, trivia games, team of the week, predictor games and many more. Driven off their proprietary fan engagement platform whose uniqueness is driven by features such as a Mobile First Approach and an ability to use, track and provide their clients with specific user data and one of the highest ratios of verified users in the digital industry.

In the past 12 months alone, FanHub Media have secured or expanded contracts in the United States with the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Soccer (MLS), Breeders Cup, Turner Networks, Draft Kings and the ATP Tour (tennis), as well as European companies such as NewsUK, the Sun, Irish Times, EuroLeague and EuroSport.

The company now serves clients based in the USA, France, Ireland, Spain and England in addition to their Australian portfolio that includes the likes of the AFL, NRL, Telstra, Fox Sports, Seven West, Triple M, Optus and many more. Since the start of 2019, their staff of 45 full time employees manage over 100 active products, for 35 clients across 15 sports, for over 4 million users annually with peak audiences of +350,000 users.

eCommerce Award - Swisse Wellness

Swisse produces vitamins, supplements, functional food and skincare backed by science and world-class manufacturing standards, using ingredients from nature to help millions of people around the world make the most from life every day.

Swisse was founded in 1969 by Australian entrepreneur Kevin Ring who set off on a quest to explore the world and find the most nutrient-rich ingredients from nature. It’s that enterprising spirit that inspires Swisse to continue innovating, challenging convention and exploring new consumer segments and markets.

The Swisse team maintains a tight product portfolio of just over 150 vitamins, supplements, functional food and natural skincare, and constantly refines the range to anticipate and cater to new consumer trends in various international markets and currently exports to New Zealand, Greater China, South Korea, Singapore, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S.

Swisse product range caters to consumers at all ages and stages of life – for example, there is a Vitamin D liquid for babies from birth, age group multivitamins targeted to women and men at various age groups, pre-and post-natal nutritional support for families during life’s greatest journey, general wellness aids, and supplements supporting specific age-related health challenges such as osteoporosis in the elderly.

Emerging Exporter Award - Pellar Technology

Pellar Technology provide enterprise blockchain solutions in finance, supply chain and e-government. They design, implement and maintain blockchain technologies for clients around the world enabling businesses to transact with reliability at 20,000 transactions per second, dramatically faster than Ethereum's 25 transactions per second.

Blockchain is one of the fundamental changes in modern technology, just like the Internet changed the way we communicate, blockchain is changing the way we do banking, finance and supply chain globally.

Pellar help businesses to execute proof of concept, build production systems and scale technology to millions of users and is currently exporting to Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, USA and Thailand. Within 5 years it is expected that all new securities will be issued using a blockchain technology. Pellar aims to be one of the platforms to empower this change by offering customers fast transaction speed, high throughput, flexible design, no transaction fee, and enterprise grade technology. Pellar recently achieved 10 million transactions per day, and successfully load tested 20,000 transactions per second. In 2019 the business was a finalist in the ‘best blockchain business in Australia’ and a top 10 most innovative technology at VivaTech 2019 in Paris.

International Education and Training Award - Melbourne University

The University of Melbourne is a world leader in education, teaching and research excellence and consistently ranks as Australia's number one university, serving the needs of its evolving local community through excellence in education, research and engagement.

In addition to its domestic contributions, the University has also become increasingly global in its outlook and reach, allowing it to contribute to the well-being of international communities and institutions around the world. This history of internationalisation has underpinned the University of Melbourne’s success as an exporter.

Victoria’s international education sector is its largest service-based export, and the University of Melbourne is one of the most significant contributors to this exporting to over 140 countries.

The University of Melbourne offers a wide range of impactful international education programs. The numbers underlying the University’s export value and contribution to the Victorian and Australian economies demonstrate its position as a powerhouse exporter. As a public-spirited institution, the University is well known for its public contributions through research, teaching and learning and engagement. It is perhaps less well known domestically, however, for its international impact.

From partnering to conduct world-leading research, to welcoming international students and staff to campus, international engagement is embedded across our entire spectrum of activities.

International Health Award - Leica Biosystems

Leica Biosystems is a medical device company – a global leader in workflow solutions and automation specialising in the design and build of diagnostic and research instruments in the fields of oncology, haematology and life sciences.

The company is streamlining otherwise tedious laboratory processes by providing instruments and associated reagents. These instruments are placed at hospitals, private laboratories and pharmaceutical companies in 65 countries. As the only company on the market to provide instruments from Biopsy to diagnosis, Leica are uniquely positioned to break down the barriers between each of these steps.

Leica’s vision is to enable patients to get their diagnosis within 24 hours from biopsy, with the aim to save lives. With a mission of "Advancing Cancer Diagnostics, Improving Lives", Leica Biosystems is an international success story that today produces three of the most recognised and successful diagnostic instruments used in the field of cancer diagnostics. Having grown from a relatively small design and development business specialising in biotech, Leica Biosystems business has doubled over the past 5 years attesting to the success of their products in the global market and recognising the heavy recurring investment made in research and development to further enhance their position as a major player in anatomical pathology, exporting in excess of 90 per cent of all products designed and manufactured in their Melbourne facility.

Manufacturing and Advanced Materials Award - Marand Precision Engineering

Marand designs, manufactures and sustains complex engineering structures, tooling and automated production systems that their customers utilise in building their products across the Aerospace, Defence, Rail and Energy industries. The essence of Marand's work is to develop innovative solutions for their customers to deploy and compete successfully in their markets.

Marand's aerospace and defence division has been providing engineered manufacturing solutions to the aerospace and defence industry for over 30 years and is currently exporting aerospace equipment and tooling solutions throughout North America, Canada, the UK, Denmark and Norway. Being one of Australia's largest exporters of equipment and components for the F-35 aircraft, Marand designed and is the sole global source for, the complex equipment used for engine installation on the F-35. Marand's automation capability, originally developed in support of the automotive industry, is now applied to moving this technology across all their markets.

Marand utilises these capabilities to diversify and design and build state of the art turnkey rolling stock maintenance facilities and equipment for BHP and Rio Tinto to support their Pilbara mining operations right through to  supporting alternative energy initiatives ranging from producing the first tidal generator to feed directly into the grid. In 2019, Marand received the Defence Industry Minister Outstanding Achievement award in support of the Global F-35 Program.

Minerals, Energy and Related Services Award - Duratray International

Duratray International is a global manufacturer of dump bodies for the mining industry. The company was founded in Melbourne in 2001, introducing new technologies to dump bodies fitted to mining haul trucks and adopting a radically different approach - the concept of a Suspended Dump Body (SDB), rather than a rigid steel box.

Duratray’s solution provides improved productivity, maintenance, and safety.  The company offers a unique and innovative solution to haulage problems that long practiced, conventional design approaches fail to solve including, reduced weight to increase payload and eliminate carry back to decrease fuel consumption and lowering the maintenance cost in comparison to traditional steel bodies.

From their factory and headquarters located in Bayswater, Victoria, the company has pursued opportunities to offer improvements to mines & quarries both domestically and internationally, and achieved significant global success as a supplier of unique and innovative solutions. Duratray now exports to five continents. Commencing with fleets of smaller 50-90 tonne trucks, later expanding to 300-400 tonne capacities, Duratray products currently operate in 34 countries.

Professional Services Award - Mo Works

Mo Works is a Melbourne based digital and creative agency delivering solutions that spark conversations, create amazing experiences and make meaningful connections. With a global outlook and an agile mindset, Mo Works is a high-growth agency that launches fast, learns fast, and moves fast.

Offering a wide range of bespoke services to enhance brands, harness products’ true potential, drive commerce, and promote global expansion, Mo Works’ clients range from start-ups needing guidance and strategy to medium-sized businesses with established requirements always looking to accelerate a client’s needs from both newly emergent and mature industries. Capitalising on flexibility as a smaller team, Mo Works are not afraid to take on new directions.

Whether it be mastering new innovative techniques, or just trying something calculatedly crazy, their business fearlessness allows them to explore more effective, more efficient, and more delightful solutions outside of the norm. Founded with the core ideal of offering personalised, bespoke services to exceed expectations, Mo Works is always looking to invoke a sense of creative wonder in their clients and maintaining the start-up-like mentality of ‘taking that leap into the unknown’ that they started with. Mo Works was founded with an international mindset and a highly multicultural team with export always being one of the driving forces of the business’s journey.

Regional Exporter Award - Care Essentials

Care Essentials Pty Ltd manufactures and sells high quality medical devices, namely Forced Air Warming System, for use in Operating Theatres all over the world.

Care Essentials’ flagship product, branded as Cocoon, is a Patient Warming machine and forced air blankets used in hospitals across the world. Cocoon offers continuous warming to patients under anaesthesia during surgery which keeps the patient’s body warm. Warming during surgery reduces the chance of infection, increases the speed of recovery and prevents hypothermia.The Cocoon machine when connected to the disposable warming blankets, provides warm and soothing air to patients in the operating theatre. Care Essentials has also recently developed a patented hand blanket which dilates veins for inserting cannulas to cancer patients who are undergoing chemotherapy.

Care Essentials are the market leaders in Australia competing with world famous companies such as 3M and Medtronic. Exporting to over 60 countries worldwide, continuous product improvement, innovation, high quality product, superior sales support and competitive pricing have resulted in an average export sales growth of 30% since 2014.

Small Business Award - FLAIM Systems

FLAIM Systems uses advanced technologies to provide next generation, safe and sustainable training to firefighters globally by delivering world-first training solutions to fire departments, the defence community, registered training organisations and businesses in over 13 countries. FLAIM Systems has revolutionised how and where firefighters can undertake training. Now they can train anywhere.

The VR technology immerses firefighters in a real fire scenario, where they feel heat and hose force, with realistic sound and vision.  FLAIM removes the safety and environmental barriers that have prevented firefighters from learning how to use tools such as foam. Firefighters can now train in a safe environment without being exposed to dangerous carcinogens, foam and the hazards of fire. By capturing user performance, FLAIM is enhancing training outcomes. The system allows instructors to monitor respiration and air usage, and effectiveness of firefighting operations, a world-first in the industry.

Market demand for the Victorian developed and manufactured system is growing rapidly, with the company exporting to New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, Israel, Peru, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, China, Thailand and USA, with India and Japan soon launching.

Sustainability Award - Business for Development

One-third of the world's 7.3 billion people are smallholder farmers. These people are some of the poorest on earth. About ninety per cent of these farmers lack strong, consistent relationships with buyers, and access to finance, inputs, agronomic training and other support. Finding market-based solutions for these farmers means finding solutions that engage one-third of humanity in addressing food security, climate stability, biodiversity conservation and rural employment.

Business for Development (B4D) is channelling markets to support these farmers and is focused on the creation of income earning opportunities in partnership with governments, business, investors, multilaterals, communities and non-government organisations. The enterprise is a socially inclusive model helping smallholder farmers to be included in private sector value chains and empowering them to improve their lives.

This model also enables mining companies to strengthen their social license to operate, by creating an opportunity to invest community development funds into initiatives that will have a long-term impact on the region's economy.

B4D was a finalist of the 2018 Unilever Global Development Award.

Technology and Innovation Award - Two Bulls

Two Bulls is a full-service digital product studio based in Melbourne and New York. Building digital products for some of the world's leading brands and most innovative organisations, Two Bulls deploy multi-disciplinary teams that can deliver on product strategy, ideation & discovery, UI/UX, engineering, quality assurance to take these products to market.

Two Bulls do this through an agile / lean approach to product development – Just enough, just in time.

Having deep experience in a diverse range of technologies and industry verticals including IoT, Healthcare, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Connected Devices, 3D Printing, Video Encoding and Smart Cities, Two Bulls apply the best project management approach remaining cognisant of their client’s needs and business requirements. They continue to support them after the launch of their product as they help the clients build their internal capability for growth. In the ten years since Two Bulls formed, it has grown from a small team of three to more than 100, receiving numerous industry awards for the team and their clients. Two Bulls export their services globally with a strong focus on the US market with clients from such diverse fields as building security, medical devices, entertainment, not-for-profit, education, pharmaceuticals, and mental health.

The 2018 Governor of Victoria Export Awards were announced on Friday 14 September 2018 at an Awards ceremony at Government House.