There’s a bright future for the mining industry, particularly if you have the right people and practices in place.
Each Wednesday, join me, Peter Finn, managing director of FACE Contracting, as I navigate the ups and downs of the mining industry with forward-thinking professionals from all walks of life. If you’re involved in the mining industry in any way – whether you’re a lifer or a high-school student looking to make the leap – Full Production is the podcast for you.
My guest this week is Zane Prickett, the innovative entrepreneur with an extensive background within the mining industry. Back in 2003, he graduated as a chemical engineer from the Colorado School of Mines, and quickly found himself on a global escapade, taking on oil field service work in Egypt and Thailand, before settling down in Perth.
Currently, he is the founding director of UnEarthed Solutions, an open innovation program for the global resources sector. UnEarthed has accumulated an impressive portfolio, collaborating with large resource companies such as BHPBilliton, Anglo American and Newcrest. Parallel to this, Zane is the director and founding member of StartupWA, a not-for-profit, representative organisation which promotes the growing technology start-up sector in Western Australia, as well as acting director of CORE Resources Innovation Hub.
In this week’s episode, we’re getting to the heart of developments in the geology world as well as the importance of data collection, autonomous mining and future developments in mining safety.
Here’s some further talking points that we cover:
- Zane’s background and his journey to Australia
- Remote workers and the importance of connection
- How Zane utilizes hackathons to develop innovative ideas
- Seeing other companies as peers, not competitors
- Preparing for change within the industry
- Why concise data presentation is so important
- Paving the way for the future innovators
- Investing in workers
- The overshadowing negative press in regards to the mining industry
- What Zane is excited about moving forward
Links:
Zane Prickett – LinkedIn
Zane Prickett – Twitter
Unearthed Website
CORE Innovation Hub website
StartupWA
Episode Transcription:
[00:00:04] Peter: Good day miners. This is Peter Finn. Welcome to Full Production.
[00:00:11] Female Speaker: In this podcast, Pete talks everything mining.
[00:00:14] Peter: A podcast dedicated to the mining industry in the Australian Pacific region.
[00:00:19] Female Speaker: From production to development and most importantly, employment opportunities of the industry’s biggest project. And here is your host, Peter Finn.
[00:00:32] Male Speaker: Good day ladies and gents. Welcome to Episode 55 of Full Production. In this episode, we have Zane Prickett sitting down for a chat with Pete. Science involvement in the resources innovation community is massive. Zane is a founding director of StartupWA and also a director of CORE Resources Innovation Hub and Unearthed Solutions. During the chat, Pete and Zane talk what’s going on in the geology world. We get a look at what CORE and Unearthed are up to as well as autonomous mining, the importance of data collection and what mining safety might look like in the near future. Ladies and gents, here’s Pete and Zane.
[00:01:21] Peter: Welcome Zane. Welcome to Full Production.
[00:01:23] Zane: Excellent. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:24] Peter: You’re in Perth. What brought you to Perth?
[00:01:26] Zane: Yes, I’ve been in Perth since 2009. It’s when I originally arrived. I finished university and joined Schlumberger Oilfield Services and kind of did an international trip from there. So two years in Egypt, two years in Malaysia, two years in Thailand and then came here to work with the wireline division. I met my wife and said, Perth’s pretty awesome, and we’ve been here ever since.
[00:01:50] Peter: So let’s talk about your upbringing. What did mom and dad do and where was home and what was life like growing up?
[00:01:55] Zane: So I grew up in New Mexico, in the States. Dad’s a financial consultant but used to be an engineer and then before I grew up on a ranch. Then mom is an engineer. She was an engineer manager for a long time so two engineering parents, grew up, twin brother. Yes, good life and then went to University of Colorado School of Mines, which is a great small mining University. Well, originally mining. I graduated chemical engineering degree. When I graduated there was exactly five mining engineers that graduated.
[00:02:30] Peter: Wow.
[00:02:30] Zane: All five had a job I think by their junior year even before they graduated. Yes, I graduated that, in chemical engineering and then joined Schlumberger, did a whole bunch of oilfield service work in the wireline division, so running tools down the holes.
[00:02:45] Peter: Have you had a look at the Australian School of Mines and compared it to what was like over home?
[00:02:52] Zane: No, I haven’t been able to dive much into the comparison of university. Universities here are great.
[00:02:58] Peter: Yes. I loved it. That would probably tell you that as though in regards to the standard but I guess it’s been interesting to get a concept from people that kind of– I like people who travel between universities and just to do a little bit education here but it keeps their degree ticking over, you get a variety. I talked to a mate who done his MBA at the Copenhagen Business School and he said the best thing he ever did was actually change Universities, just a couple of ways through because you find the lecturer’s in different countries taught different things and they kept your progress along.
[00:03:27] Zane: I think in something like an MBA, I’d want to do it in six different countries. I think there’s a ton to be learned in each place you go in that space. Colorado School of Mines is a very practical University. So we had this thing called summer session where we just did back to back experiments or projects and then delivering papers or proposals constantly, just like real work. That bit was the most helpful out of everything that we learned to get us ready.
[00:03:55] Peter: Was it far from home?
[00:03:56] Zane: It’s an eight-hour drive, so it wasn’t too bad. It was just far enough where I couldn’t get back on a weekend. But we can get back for the holidays.
[00:04:03] Peter: Yes. Cool. What made you go to that path, mate? Like for your high school, were you always into the countryside or does your brother goes to University with you as well?
[00:04:12] Zane: No, no, Matt– Well, the brother’s even off to become an accountant, sorry, an economist. So he did economics and then he joined a power company and then he got his MBA. Then he got into gaming and product management and now he’s a product manager for a company. Yes, so different paths. I just always liked engineering and like to get into the guts of stuff and so I took that path. I kind of always even though when I was young, I never wanted to be– I always wanted to be technically strong. I thought I could learn like the business and the other bits later. But I thought I could never have time again to learn the technical information that I wanted to learn, so I said better go do the engineering degree and then I can learn the other bits as we go.
[00:04:54] Peter: So what was the official qualification coming out with?
[00:04:56] Zane: Chemical engineer.
[00:04:57] Peter: Chemical engineer.
[00:04:57] Zane: Yes, bachelors.
[00:04:57] Peter: And that took you down the oil game?
[00:05:00] Zane: Yes. So Schlumberger Oilfield Services, largest oil field service company, joined them. I got an offer to work in Texas, I said no, thanks. This tells you how green I was. I had two offers at the time, either go to Egypt or to go to Vietnam. Now that I’m a bit older and wiser, I really should have taken Vietnam, it’s in Vung Tau which is an amazing Island. You do a better job a month and you have great food and a great life, and it’s a really spectacular place. I didn’t know much, so I was like, Vietnam or Egypt, pyramids, I’ll take Egypt. And that was really tough, I mean, living in the middle of the desert, 10 weeks on 10 days off.
[00:05:39] Peter: I bet.
[00:05:40] Zane: And really tough jobs, kind of not big jobs, just like back to back. Look, tough but really good learning environment.
[00:05:48] Peter: I bet. How long did you do that for in Egypt?
[00:05:52] Zane: Two years in Egypt.
[00:05:53] Peter: Wow. So you lived there for two years.
[00:05:55] Zane: Yes, it was great. I mean, I was in a desert camp.
[00:05:58] Peter: What would you do a few days off, on 10 days off, did you fly somewhere or did you?
[00:06:01] Zane: I mean, 10 weeks that you were there, you’d spend what, nothing, and then you jump on a plane and go wherever you could. I didn’t get enough time to spend in Europe when I was younger, so I just go to Europe for a week.
[00:06:15] Peter: You say international mining, I was picked up a lot and just talking to a mate last night having a beer and you know, all different levels. And he’s like, I’m single now as every other mining guy usually goes for a breakup. And he’s like, now I just work eight weeks on and have four weeks off. And my four weeks off, I just travel around and get to see the world. With international mining and I guess the oil has always been pretty big like that.
[00:06:37] Zane: It’s pretty consistent. I think I was 21 and dumb and it’s just a great, great time to do that. I couldn’t do that now.
[00:06:44] Peter: Where in Egypt were you because I’ve traveled to Egypt?
[00:06:46] Zane: Yes, so Ras Shokeir. It’s a small– it’s an oil town only. It was in the height of its production in 1996 with BP and others. And then it’s been declining substantially and by the time I was in 2003 to 2005, it was pretty much an outpost. It’s just north of Hurghada which is across the sea from Sharm El-Sheikh in that space.
[00:07:11] Peter: Geographically, my head is spinning because I can’t remember that well.
[00:07:16] Zane: Well, it’s over on the Red Sea.
[00:07:17] Peter: Cool. And after the two years, you obviously moved on to stay the same company or–?
[00:07:21] Zane: Yes, just took the same position but with Schlumberger in Malaysia, which was good. Malaysia is a great place to live. I was in Kemaman which is the east coast of the peninsula, just north of Kuantan. It was a small town but it was a lot of fun and we had a really good group of engineers. Good times.
[00:07:40] Peter: Cool. Where did it take you from there? Just sort of–
[00:07:42] Zane: Yes. So then I just went to Thailand to open up a remote operating center and then down here to be the field service manager.
[00:07:49] Peter: How was it doing remote operating center in oil and gas? Obviously, who’s that for?
[00:07:53] Zane: Yes, that was for Schlumberger.
[00:07:54] Peter: So you stayed with Schlumberger for a long time.
[00:07:56] Zane: Yes, for nine years. So we had, I think it’s a pretty classic-
[00:08:00] Peter: And why Thailand?
[00:08:01] Zane: -challenge. Because we could get our engineers to live there. It was a great central place. But look, at that point, the oil and gas industry was going crazy. We couldn’t hire enough engineers and we couldn’t get enough seniority. So our idea around spreading expertise was to have remote operating centers, so you could have senior engineers watching the jobs in real time and then providing support to that. So we hopped up on that. I think we are a bit early on both the technology–
[00:08:31] Peter: Was that one of the first people to try and do that? Was it was a newer thing to the industry?
[00:08:37] Peter: It was newer at that point. There had been one before us about a year before in Aberdeen. We were number two in the world in that space. I mean, specifically for what we did. There was another kind of remote operating centers for other bits of the process. But for ours, it was new.
[00:08:54] Peter: And that brought you to sunny Australia?
[00:08:56] Zane: And then I came down here to take up the field service management role of wireline here in Perth. So I was here for two years. I always wanted to start my own business and so at that point, I decided I was going to quit. It’s great. Schlumberger was good, but I’d kind of that road had been-
[00:09:16] Peter: Walked.
[00:09:15] Zane: -had been walked. Exactly. So it was time to try it on my own, so I took a break.
[00:09:21] Peter: And you took a break and you’ve come to Australia, obviously, Perth, you do much else around Australia or was Perth sort of where you stayed?
[00:09:29] Zane: No, no. I mean, we know we would to go over to Brisbane and other locations. But look, Perth was the shop. It’s the original place that we came into. It’s where we both have jobs now.
[00:09:41] Peter: Cool. Is your partner Australian or she–
[00:09:43] Zane: No, or she’s Australian now, yes.
[00:09:45] Peter: Okay.
[00:09:45] Zane: She’s originally from Italy.
[00:09:47] Peter: Cool. And you got a few kids?
[00:09:48] Zane: Yes, we got one kid. Keeping us up.
[00:09:52] Peter: How old was he?
[00:09:53] Zane: 15 months.
[00:09:53] Peter: 15 months. Yes, I’ve got two, a 9-month-old and a 2-year-old.
[00:09:57] Zane: Okay. So you know–
[00:09:58] Peter: I like my trips away. I get plenty–
[00:10:00] Zane: You’re looking pretty good right now. You look well rested.
[00:10:03] Peter: Henceforth I’ve had to improve my sleep patterns on my phone, time and we’re well-rested even more so that I’m away from the kids. I just FaceTimed my wife before you come in for the podcast. So, how is it and she’s like, shit. So I sometimes, usually, let’s say when I first met you, I was actually living here with my family. So it cost me a small fortune. But I usually try and if I go away any longer than two weeks if the wife’s up for it or depending on what’s on me, I try and bring them along. I try and get a bit of a work-life integration rather than work-life balance. I missed out on a lot because I was a kid because of how I grew up, so I’m pretty, now talking about the funnel before that I’m pretty came to be different than whatever environment I had. And yes, I guess have experiences is that again it gives me a fulfilled life, and the kids a fulfilled. The kids, they changed the game altogether. Like you got to do something and you’re like, oh, you know, just booked flights and go. And now it’s like, I’ve got a [00:10:57], right? I’m like, Reagan, let me go and talk to the boss and see if I’m allowed to do this.
[00:11:02] Zane: Yes, if I can get it done. Look, well, I mean, my wife’s family’s all Italian and they’re in Italy. And it’s really important that our son learns Italian. Like it’s really important that he comes up and he’s able to speak Italian. So we’re making much of the same decisions about, okay, how can we spend two months which we did when he was young, in Italy, with the family so he can get ingrained in it from the beginning? How does he speak it every day, all the time? So it’s not something that’s lost. You know, we look back 18 years ago, “Man, we should have done that.”
[00:11:31] Peter: No, you can’t live with any regrets. Do you know any Italian?
[00:11:34] Zane: Yes, my Italian’s okay.
[00:11:36] Peter: It must be hard because I live in New Zealand for the [00:11:39] at my wife is Kiwi. But she has this support network around her, so it must be helpful.
[00:11:45] Zane: Super helpful, yes.
[00:11:46] Peter: It was a big decision that I had to make was, can you do this and you know, being in remote technology. I got staff all over the world or is Asian region or Australian and a bit in the Philippines. People’s like, how do you run a company from New Zealand. I was like, oh, I know it’s cool–
[00:12:01] Zane: Technology.
[00:12:02] Peter: It’s called an airplane, we got a thing called Zoom, www.zoom.com, and they’re like, oh, wow. And it’s amazing what systems and processes you can put in place.
[00:12:10] Zane: Did you form the company kind of from the beginning to be remote?
[00:12:14] Peter: No, no, like I had a bit of a– it’s a bit of a story talk where I was actually probably trying to get validated by people that motivated me for the wrong reasons originally and as I started to realize, as I’m only young too, I started to grow, I started to realize how important flexibilities. And now I give staff members semi-flexibility. Shit. What I get in return is like–
[00:12:37] Zane: We’re the same and I think what you’re– before you were saying like, I can’t believe you can work from there. And I actually think the future organizations, it’s just going to be like, yeah, of course, we all work remote. I work much better at home, I get x, y, and z done when I’m there.
[00:12:52] Peter: It’s amazing how much work I can get done between when the kids go to bed at 12 and two o’clock. I get more done now in two hours than I used to do in an 8-hour a day.
[00:13:00] Zane: Yes, a hundred percent. And I think we don’t focus enough on like, actually, what do we got to get done? What do we get to do?
[00:13:05] Peter: It’s funny because it’s usually like a fixed mindset thing where people have an expectation, this is how a business would work. And–
[00:13:13] Zane: Remember, we talked about that kind of hard, you know, your habits-
[00:13:18] Peter: Yes, that’s right.
[00:13:19] Zane: -and you start thinking about like, actually, does that stuff matter? Do I care if I’m here in the office or not or if my people are here in the office? No, actually I care that we’re getting the job done.
[00:13:29] Peter: You do– like podcasting, for example, I love it face to face. You cannot buy this conversation, this chemistry because sometimes you can get it still via Skype and you can work hard for it and it comes pretty naturally anyway for people who are on the podcast, but you just can’t put a price on face to face when you really need to have it. And I think that for me personally, I want to try to put a schedule and plan out where I can make sure that I create these environments where we can have this time for every team member. But it’s also, the reason why I got Reagan on board and people need to be mindful of this in their own life is the only really commodity in life, you know, is time. And I really got to appreciate my own time and yes, it’s interesting. Time is the commodity and the only thing you really take it on life is the relationships you have in it, and that’s the way I leave which is I appreciate my time. I never used to, though. Thank me wrong. This is not something that you just woke up one day and say I’m going to start doing. It took a lot of abuse of my time, make me realize. Anyway, enough about that topic. Let’s talk about Unearthed. So how did it come about? You’ve gone through your career, tell us like what tell us what on earth is.
[00:14:44] Zane: Look, we were– I background on the resource industry, obviously with Schlumberger. I enjoy the space a ton in on the inside of it, knowing how big the opportunities and challenges are, and the ability for technology to make a change there. But way back in in 2013, we were looking at it. And there was no real way for startups and for SMEs, and for smaller technology companies to get involved with these big guys. They were just not really able to connect. And so we kind of looked at it and this was directly related to our past businesses. So we both had small technology businesses in the space that just couldn’t get access.
[00:15:24] Peter: You and who?
[00:15:24] Zane: So myself and Justin is another director and Paul Lucy.
[00:15:28] Peter: I think I’ve met Justin, is that right?
[00:15:31] Zane: He sits down right next to me. And so we came up with the idea about how do we make the industry more open and more transparent and more accessible to startups, innovators and entrepreneurs. We knew we couldn’t do like a presentation, we actually had to do something more. And that’s where we thought hackathons are great. There are real way to showcase innovator skills versus challenges that come through from the industry, and so we did our first one way back in in 2014 which is almost five years ago. And it kind of kicked off since there and that very first competition to that very first hackathon group came in with completely outside the mining industry and had a great idea around how to how to monitor and manage Bundy’s on site. And since then, they’ve kind of grown into a company, Newton Labs, which is also based in CORE and continued forward. Unearthed is kind of continued to focus on that mission, about how we make the industry more open, more transparent. We get those challenges, get the data, the information to innovators, and entrepreneurs across the globe. And then how do we help innovators and entrepreneurs go from zero to one in the industry.
[00:16:38] Peter: It’s a pretty deep topic. I’m very fortunate I come to the I guess the piss-ups. I get to meet some of these guys who come along, and they’re good like their interesting. That’s why I said they’re interesting people because some of them have got really good ideas. It’s just that like, the integration I needed to do to push it forward. And I see you guys, I look at the website before. I have been looking at the website for a little bit. Some of the partners you got on board. Dude, like Newcrest and all them sort of guys. Getting them guys on board, these guys are behind you, to a certain extent, to say, hey, we need this. We need this cool shit. We need the innovation. We need the fun stuff.
[00:17:16] Zane: And I think it’s the conversation starting to evolve which has been great. It used to be a lot of like, oh, this will be fun and flashy such in the beginning. And now it’s getting more to the nuts and the bolts about how does us being more open and transparent with our challenges and our issues drive efficiencies in our business.
[00:17:36] Peter: It’s funny how because people see other companies as competitors. And I’ve been really trying to take the mindset as the same as [00:17:42] because you can learn so much from even people that you might not think you can learn from. Like I ran to another contracting company, I don’t like that I have any competitors and like, dude, it’s exactly the same as you, do the same as you, everything. Actually, you’d get along really well if you sat in the room and had a beer. But when you start, it must be good for you running it or being a director of Unearthed to see all these people come through that are potentially the future and have some pretty cool ideas and concepts.
[00:18:12] Zane: It’s been really empowering to see the ability to support innovators and entrepreneurs in the space and then actually making progress towards delivering new solutions, creating new businesses, creating new jobs in the space. It’s also great to see the industry starting to get out of that kind of very siloed mentality and thinking about well, what about that technology in that other industry? What about that approach and that other space? Can that start working for us? I think we’re only at the tip of the iceberg and moving in. I think the majority of the methods and the process and the technology we have now is really right for a change.
[00:18:52] Peter: It’s up for disruption.
[00:18:55] Zane: Yes, change. I mean, that disruption is like we kind of backed that around quite loosely in a lot of ways. And disruption, you know, there’s a lot behind that like that’s disrupting whole entire industries with people’s jobs and financial cycles and so on. And I think–
[00:19:11] Peter: Change, like the word change, a bit of the disruption.
[00:19:14] Zane: Yes, and part of what we did with CORE, we saw within Unearthed is that you can’t just run these programs yet you have to have spaces and you have to enable people to connect and create networks and build out from there.
[00:19:25] Peter: So becoming an enabler must be pretty fulfilling for you guys, like you and Paul and Justin.
[00:19:30] Zane: Yes, it’s getting there. No, I mean, I’m pretty relentless, so I think it’s great. The amount of great outcomes that we’ve had is good. I just think that we’re like 1% of the potential and not even 1% of what we can do.
[00:19:45] Peter: What background did Justin and Paul carry? And how did the chemistry worked for the three of you just getting on the table together and saying, hey, this is a cool idea?
[00:19:52] Zane: Well, so Justin was the only– we, way back, used to have this startup kind of group here, it’s still around, Morning Startup, but we used to when it was only 12 people around the coffee table. And so Justin and I met them and then we are able to align over about a year before we started in into Unearthed. And he has very much the same problems. He was a founder of a business in the resources space that was having troubles getting access. Paul Lucey was the head of innovation at Gold Fields at the time. So he’s mining background through and through, and it was really good to see both sides. So us, to startups and innovators trying to get in and him from the mining space, trying to get mining to change and trying to get people in his own company to be more open.
[00:20:35] Peter: And you’re doing some– I’d love to chat to them on the podcast to talk about their own stories and obviously, and I guess that gives that different sectors to from the resource point of view where people can come in. You must [00:20:49] cross pollination, like you said, between the industries and what someone else is doing for innovation point of view in one industry to how you can actually relate to another.
[00:20:57] Zane: I mean, look, Unearthed is a very resources focus. So we only take challenges and opportunities from the resource industry, so mining oil and gas and energy. And even within the mining and oil and gas space, there’s a ton of opportunity for crossover, but they don’t explore enough. And it’s mostly not within the operators but within the service companies.
[00:21:18] Peter: Let’s talk about Dan Milford, Chironix. Do you and Dan catch up much or?
[00:21:25] Zane: No, I haven’t had a chance to catch up with him.
[00:21:27] Peter: He’d be worth having a chat to. I guess you’re talking to these guys all the time as well.
[00:21:32] Zane: It’s interesting. Maybe I should be more in the details. I really want to continue to build the process and the foundation for these things to go. I haven’t been too involved in the point by point.
[00:21:48] Peter: Yeah. Okay.
[00:21:49] Zane: Does that makes sense?
[00:21:49] Peter: Yes. Where your attention goes, energy flows as well and I guess you’ve only got a certain amount of that with how much you probably got going on in your life in general.
[00:21:58] Zane: Yes, it’s busy times.
[00:22:00] Peter: Mate, let’s talk about you got a few competitions going as well. So obviously, you got the industries covered, and you got the partners covered. And obviously, then partners are a big player for you guys to why you do what you do. How are they? They must be really responsive or coming to you with competitions or with issues and needs resolved or opportunities to get–
[00:22:22] Zane: Could always be more. I think it’s an evolving business model. And I think it’s hard for them to fully get their grasp around crowdsourcing, what does that mean within their business? So I think it’s an evolving discussion for us, some are faster than others.
[00:22:41] Peter: I like it. I like coming here. Feels like I can put like a bet on a horse and I could turn into something big. That’s why I brought that book along because I really want these guys to come forward and give a good narrative pitch that’s going to go shit. I can see how that could work and this, this, and this.
[00:22:58] Zane: Yes.
[00:23:00] Peter: And competition wise, you’ve got a couple running now and you’ve had a few in the past. Do you want to talk about what you’ve had in the past and what you are going on?
[00:23:05] Zane: We’ve run now over 30 plus competition or events. We have a whole bunch of challenges that are on the platform. I think we have 60 plus challenges right now. Got a couple, one is around pretty predicting zinc recovery from McArthur mine, with Glencore. That’s a really good one, they give us three years of data. We’ve opened up that–
[00:23:28] Peter: Tailings or was it– were you working on tailings or is it–
[00:23:31] Zane: Here you’re going to catch me out of my technical expertise in mining. No, it’s good. It’s a specific part of the processing where they’re adding in their reagents and trying to improve their recovery of zinc but not use too much reagent, they’re going to blow their budget.
[00:23:47] Peter: Yes, it’s tough.
[00:23:50] Zane: It’s a challenge optimization problem.
[00:23:52] Peter: They might alert you, so initially you can make it in some of these old bodies and how they break it down and cycles and stuff. You can change your reagent and literally make a bit of million-dollar efficiency improvement, so–
[00:24:04] Zane: And I think I’m very interested to see like there are so many techniques in the data science space now, and then machine learning space now that I’m interested to see. And we’ll find at the end of the competition who has because the way we run the competition is we have a public data set that everybody can use and they can train on, they can build their models, and then we have a private scoring set. So it’s literally who scores the best, who predicts the best and who builds the best model versus what we score on. So I’m interested at the end, whoever finishes at the top, what is the actual approach that they took, what was the model they built, and how accurate were they on predicting zinc recovery?
[00:24:43] Peter: That’s not just that topic, that’s every topic to how they approach what they do from a solution point of view, and what variations come into play. That’s an interesting observation for you to look at and make you pretty smart. What accounts is that what approach you should take.
[00:25:04] Zane: I think the space is evolving so quickly that it’s actually, you could have an answer today in your models and your prediction that could completely change with new approaches or new data streams or new information.
[00:25:18] Peter: There are some pretty big benefits, not just for the client, but there are incentives there for the guys to come along and say, hey, I see one with a million dollars with–
[00:25:26] Zane: So we have a big, really big one on right now, that’s a million-dollar top prize, it’s around an expiration challenge and finding new targets in the Mount Woods space for OZ Minerals.
[00:25:35] Peter: OZ minerals, yes. But do they have reasonable sizes? Is it around the South Australia area?
[00:25:39] Zane: Yes, yes. And they’ve drilled. They spent a lot of money on drilling in the past. They’ve done a whole bunch of exploration. And this is another approach to see if they can find– if they can get a find there.
[00:25:53] Peter: That’s putting your money where your mouth is.
[00:25:55] Zane: There are two competitions in the past, million-dollar competitions in the mining space. I mean, you know, Goldcorp, doing it way back in the day was truly innovative and risky. There’s a lot of credit to kick it off when they did it. And then Integra did it and that was quite successful. We’re taking an approach that’s different. I think those competitions were trying to call all geologists you have to have a new approach. we’re really pushing to make sure that the data is as accessible and available as possible, so we can get data scientist and geologists to work on it.
[00:26:30] Peter: You might going to do teamwork, buddy
[00:26:32] Zane: Yes, we’ve got articles on in interdisciplinary teams, and hopefully, future outcomes.
[00:26:39] Peter: Million dollar is a lot of money. If you’re a startup, and you had these data collection skills or even a geology mate and you go, hey, let’s sit down and have a conversation.
[00:26:48] Zane: Yes. So the competition is launching on the 20th of February. It’s two and a half weeks. It’s 100% open to anyone to come register, download the data, and then start to build your models. There’ll be a funnel submission in May, will be judging quite quickly. So by June, they’ll actually be a plan on releasing the final announcement of who’s the winning teams, and then they’re going to be drilling by the end of the year. So whatever targets they get, they’re going to be drilling to try and find.
[00:27:16] Peter: I am technically ahead of people like I was no, that’s a cool thing to do. A little bit of different approach too.
[00:27:22] Zane: Yes, I think the optionality is quite impressive both on just number of approaches they can get, and on novel techniques and novel approaches. I think there’s a lot to change in geology and the change is not that it goes like all data, the change is that between old domain and old geology and all storytelling and visual versus all data-driven, it will move somewhere in between that. And it will be a combination of what’s best in the data-driven approach and what’s best in the domain. And I’m pretty comfortable we’re putting the data out, we’re describing the challenge, we’re going to be prepared to be able to optimize for an outcome in that space.
[00:28:07] Peter: Do you feel there is this action indicative, I’m not a geologist at all, but do you feel that you guys have defined the scope well enough for people to be able to understand or what they’re going to be looking at it and how you potentially want it from a scoring point of view?
[00:28:23] Zane: So it’s the first time we’ve ever done it.
[00:28:25] Peter: Okay. Cool.
[00:28:25] Zane: This big of a competition.
[00:28:27] Peter: Because it’s pretty big.
[00:28:29] Zane: And we are trying to do it as quantitative as possible. But geology is a bit of a qualitative-type domain, so to be determined.
[00:28:39] Peter: Cool. And the presentation must be pretty critical too of how this data is presented.
[00:28:45] Zane: Yes. So we’ve spent a ton of time both organize the data, plotting it on spatial display, so anyone can quickly see where it is, download it, understand it, tagging it, filtering it. It’s a lot. It’s going to be over a terabyte of data total. That’ll be available for competitors.
[00:29:04] Peter: I look forward to watching the space. They have fans.
[00:29:06] Zane: Yes, I think it’s a really great– I mean, I think it’s specifically an exploration there. We could go on as really good discussions about the business model around exploration in juniors and the opportunity to change that
[00:29:20] Peter: Rabbit holes, they’re called. It’s like I always say in the podcast, be Alice and go down the rabbit hole, and this is what you’ll find. You should write these topics down because this is something that you could talk about again. I’d love to get– I’ll tell you one thing I’m planning on doing is getting a couple of more microphones, and actually having a podcast like a–
[00:29:36] Zane: With a few people.
[00:29:37] Peter: Or you think about it, someone with your smarts and they get a geologist and you get a mining engineer, then you have these conversations that are just recorded bit and yes, it excites me. It excites me that we’re actually starting to talk to each other from a professional point of view, and you connect the dots. So before I wrap it up on Unearthed, there must be some innovating characters that you must look at and go, holy shit, the future’s bright.
[00:30:05] Zane: It’s funny, I’m a massive optimist overall, and we can go on to the other bits around the course. I really am an optimist. I just think we’ve got to move fast to build the pathways to support the future.
[00:30:21] Peter: The enabling path.
[00:30:22] Zane: Yes, like we can’t– we’ll talk about core skills but you can see the top shareholders and financers and CEOs jumping on the bandwagon go, we’re going to automate everything we’re so excited it’s going to drive amazing productivity growth and like that’s going to be a wake of destruction behind him. We need to get there but we also have to provide the pathways to move the people forward and move the opportunities forward and so when you talk about the characters, I think the opportunity is how do you create this great pool where people feel like I’ve got a good idea and then come in and actually make it happen.
[00:30:55] Peter: I look forward to it. Let’s talk because that point leads into the environment and which is CORE itself. So how did I coming back getting here? That’s a good question.
[00:31:05] Zane: Tameron [00:31:06] Did you drop her a note for–
[00:31:09] Peter: She’s having a kid or she had a kid.
[00:31:12] Zane: Number two, it’s today.
[00:31:13] Peter: I’ve been leaving her alone.
[00:31:14] Zane: So I’m sure we’ll get a photo here.
[00:31:16] Peter: So I’ve sort of just been leaving her alone because I know she’s been preoccupied but I mean, I came here and joined– I moved to Perth for three months. How I joined in the CORE Innovation Hub and I liked it. I liked it because there’s so many cool people around like yourself and just started to meet people and I’m like wow, this place is pretty cool and very different compared to what other mining environments that arethere are talked about office wise presented. And coming here and obviously, people got wind of the podcast and I’ve been getting a favorite attraction and having some really deep influential conversations and then I really like, like you said, this is why you do it. I really liked the environment. I like the white environment does to you from an internal point of view to want to achieve more. You know, you show me your friends and I’ll show you your future. And that ultimately come down to and I assume that’s why CORE innovation or the hub was sort of started?
[00:32:14] Zane: Look, from Unearthed and the activities we ran, we saw all these great outcomes but no home for them. So they would come up with a good idea like [00:32:23] and you’d be thinking, we got to find places for these people to coalesce and then come together and actually create the outcomes over the long term. And that was where CORE was born. We knew– Unearthed is very active so we’re finding the competitions and finding the challenges and try and bring them in. CORE’s more passive. How do we create the right ingredients for you to bake your own cake? How do you find the right stakeholders, the right people aligned in the same direction but enable you to go and build that network, build the outcomes that you want
[00:32:56] Peter: That there, what you do said right then and that sentence about building the outcomes you want is the reason why I become an ambassador for CORE. Because you here, this is me personally, and you just get that– it’s like you got an aura about the place. I only get here once a quarter, maximum these days with life and podcasting and depending on I’ve got on our work. I’ve got a general manager who [00:33:17] bit more often than I will but you bang on. The aura the place gives and the people that, you know, the amount of stuff that happens down stairs days that I don’t tap into because my brain can’t take on this role. I always seem to leave you with a sore head and feeling really fatigued. They’ve been looking after my kids all day, but really I’ve just been hanging out. They’re really smart people to hurt my head because of the, you know, neuro electricity in their brains just exploding out their ears.
[00:33:42] Zane: That’s so nice.
[00:33:43] Peter: It is.
[00:33:45] Zane: I was just saying I just come in, I’m just tired because I got a kid at home. I’m not sleeping.
[00:33:49] Peter: But I like it. I just like the energy feel and then that was the ultimate. How did that come around because in that venture I presume is you, Tameron and–
[00:33:58] Zane: Yes, and Spacecubes. So we all came together. Spacecube which is a great facilitator of Flux and Rift and other co-working space. They didn’t have an industry focused space. We knew that it was an opportunity with Unearthed, so we came together. We didn’t have anyone to really drive it and make sure that it was successful, and that’s where Tam was there and on board, and she’s done a great job over the last two and a half years to get it where it’s at.
[00:34:24] Peter: Yes, she’s done really good. It was funny, when I first came over here and I started to– I had a few options to move into offices with people of other companies and they’re good people but they had motives. They wanted something eventually, I think. And I thought I really wanted to come to a mutual workplace where one, I could do work with. Two, I wasn’t going to try and be utilized for something else. And anyway, CORE was the last place I signed. And I met Tameron and I was like, why didn’t you show me this place first. I wouldn’t know anywhere else. And we have Tameron, who I met personally. She’s such a nice lady. She’s so professional, well spoken, easy to get along with and that creates the whole environment.
[00:35:08] Zane: I think she’s really passionate about community. She’s doing this as really as a founder does it, where they care about the mission and the purpose and the outcomes. And she’s really driven to make sure that this goes forward. I think, in a big little, I’ve really enjoyed Perth. I know I’m American, but I’m now here, my family’s here. I love Perth. But if I look at globally, the world’s more connected than ever. There’s going to be a lot of challenges coming up. When its global and it’s connected though, you got to play off your strengths and the opportunity for Perth and for Australia, it’s not saying we’re not, but I think it’s to enhance it and to get better and to do it in the next generation of technology is to become the resources innovation hub globally. That’s in oil and gas, that’s in mining, that’s a huge opportunity. You create the service, the software, the next generation of tools that you export everywhere. And I would hate for us to look in 30 years at our resources that all this amazing wealth that we have here in Australia and go, what capability do we get from that? Hold on, what did we– new novel companies, new novel applications, a new capability in our people. What do we get from it? You don’t want to have that regret.
[00:36:29] Peter: No, and you’re right. I think you want to break it right down, I feel like sometimes we sell ourselves a little bit short by not helping ourselves in Australia. We have a massive opportunity from a resource point of view to– we have got something the world wants. And we need to be able to capture that not just from a resource point of view but having the skill set and that cohesion internally to be able to make it a resource, moving forward and–
[00:36:54] Zane: But look, the resources are here for the people of Australia. How do we make sure that they deliver back the things that we want for the long term? That capability matters. You want your kids to be highly competent and capable for the future world. We need to make sure those things they’re aligned from now. You don’t want to look back 30 years and go, should have done that.
[00:37:19] Peter: Yes. Living life with a few regrets. It’s interesting how trying to thought to the CORE Innovation Hub. I tell you what, it’s a bit deeper than I thought it was beer. I’ve been trying to get Tameron on the podcast for a little bit and makes you quite impressed. I knew it was pretty deep reasoning because I resonate with the whole work environment and you guys but to hear that it’s like shit. That’s a bit deeper than I thought. Maybe I want to think I wasn’t thinking of it deeper than I needed to be. I’m glad we have this conversation. What I like about it, I just like you even want to get to the shallow reasons. I even like the basic things like the gym.
[00:37:54] Zane: Yes, it’s nice.
[00:37:55] Peter: Just to go and be active and have a stretch of the outside bit. The flexibility to use other facilities in Flux and Spacecube and wherever else, and the people are nice. I used to like, Emma has moved on now, hasn’t she? She was always good for a beer and a laugh. Emmy is a nice young girl. You get these people that are willing to run around and make it what you want it to be.
[00:38:15] Zane: Yes, we have a new GM coming in.
[00:38:17] Peter: Yes, have he’s got one yet or is it?
[00:38:18] Zane: Yes, so Aaron will be in on the 5th of March.
[00:38:21] Peter: Awesome.
[00:38:21] Zane: A bit of time but that’s great and he’s got a quite a mission to continue to support the memberships, get the activities and the events going through, and get us to Brisbane. So this year we want to be–
[00:38:35] Peter: We should talk about Brisbane because I think we have had an indicative conversation offline but I will definitely have another one about it because Brisbane from a resource sector, any resource sector, is it’s number two. It’s Perth’s baby brother.
[00:38:51] Zane: Yes, some ways it’s a baby brother, I think in the size of the projects, but actually in the collaboration in the innovation space, I don’t put it as a baby brother. I mean, there’s a lot of activity going in that nascent–
[00:39:03] Peter: You’d know more than I would. But yes, I think.
[00:39:05] Zane: I mean, like they’re just– I don’t know. Look, I’m not Australian. So I don’t know the deep cultural differences between Western Australians and Queenslanders but–
[00:39:15] Peter: Rugby and NFL.
[00:39:16] Zane: Okay.
[00:39:18] Peter: Rugby league and NFL.
[00:39:19] Zane: Well, yes. I don’t know. But I can say that in Brisbane, they collaborate well.
[00:39:27] Peter: I look forward to watching that rabbit hole evolve from a personal point of view. I look forward to watching the geographical nature of CORE office space, so you know, co-working space grow into Brisbane. And obviously, I look forward to meet the new GM and I look forward to getting a few more people on the podcast to talking about the workspace. I look forward to getting Tameron on the podcast.
[00:39:50] Zane: Yes, give her some time man.
[00:39:51] Peter: I will. If you find her breastfeeding, I’ll say, hang on–
[00:39:56] Zane: Yes, give her some time.
[00:39:57] Peter: Yes, kids. It’s not Tameron’s first kid.
[00:40:03] Zane: No, it’s number two.
[00:40:04] Peter: Yes, number two.
[00:40:05] Zane: That’s great.
[00:40:06] Peter: It’s awesome.
[00:40:07] Zane: Boy and a girl too.
[00:40:08] Peter: That’s what I’ve got. I’ve got a boy and a girl.
[00:40:10] Zane: Check, check.
[00:40:12] Peter: What do you get? You got-
[00:40:12] Zane: I got a boy.
[00:40:13] Peter: -just a boy. Cool. Definitely, good times in life. Just the sleep pattern will get you every time. I guess let’s talk about this, you got Unearthed, which is just a platform where people can startups in common, innovative, where this cool shit can happen, and it’s an enabling platform. Then you’ve got the environment to probably even [00:40:35] to create the environment to bring the best out of people and more out of people, which I’m really happy to be hanging out at and be a part of, and then CORE skills. I’m interested because is this a reasonably new thing or been around for a little bit or?
[00:40:50] Zane: So we launched CORE skills at the end of 2017. CORE skills has a very simple focus. We know we went back to all these people talking about automation and none of the pathways. I think the opportunity is not to keep talking about all these great things and not bring our people on the journey. We need to create the pathways to get them from the jobs of today to the jobs of tomorrow. And to get from the skills of today to the capability of tomorrow, and also not lose all that great domain knowledge. It’s an amazing, deep like experience that’s in the industry. And so CORE skills is here to build those pathways. One of the first or the first course that we did was this data science springboard. So how do we take these great geologists, technical engineers and provide them with the data skills so they’re going to be working with the tools in the future? And we got Rio Tinto, Alcoa, Roy Hill, and ATCO Gas to come on board. We got delivery partners UWA, CSIRO, and Curtin and built this industry lead, industry-focus course to get people into the tools and actually understanding what they’re doing in the data science space.
[00:41:56] Peter: Some decent place behind it, dude.
[00:41:58] Zane: Yes, and I think it’s been a really good– like I give them a lot of credit because we had a vision. I didn’t have a whole bunch of meat on the bone. We had a vision, but I think it’s a pretty resonating vision. We all need to work hard at building the pathways. It shouldn’t be easy for people to get from the jobs of today and tomorrow, but a hundred percent they should have the options and the pathways to get there. And so they saw the vision and they were willing to– it didn’t fit in their current learning path. It didn’t fit in their current plan, they just said, we’ll give this a go and they’ve really helped support it. So I got to give them a lot of credit for that first course. Since then, now we’re pushing on to do four courses this year in Perth and a course in Brisbane. So it’s going to be quite busy doing that specific data science springboard course. And then we’ve got other courses in the works that are all about building those pathways.
[00:42:49] Peter: Cool and I guess you’ve had the course here for a little while. You’ve done some fine-tuning because obviously, it evolves pretty quickly, their data, springboard sort of stuff like, you know.
[00:42:58] Zane: Yes, it does. It does. We’re finding it more than anything, it’s not like a deep technical course. But it really is unpacking the black box so then you can do a lot of self-learning from there.
[00:43:08] Peter: Yes, it’s funny, I was talking to a guy, Scott, I kind of [00:43:12] the last name. Now, a really smart guy and he was saying that he ended up pulling out of university on a certain course because the stuff that we’re teaching him, he could learn for Google courses or you know, whatever it might be because it’s evolving. And he said to the teacher, he said, what you’re teaching me is irrelevant. It’s three years behind.
[00:43:32] Zane: In this space right now, it is that fast. But some of the course bits around like stats, data quality, those are kind of unchanging and there’s going to be– but like the specific model or techniques you’re going to use, that’s evolving really fast.
[00:43:47] Peter: In the inside tips what are the next couple of courses going to get rolled out or kind of their end or?
[00:43:54] Zane: I think we’ve done a good job at the technical level and engineering level. I think we’ve got to get down to the guts. I mean, the way I talk about data, I think you wouldn’t take anyone on your site that didn’t have basic safety behavior. Some of the acts are unsafe, no matter where they are in the operations, even your PA, there’s no chance that somebody that acts unsafe is acceptable in this industry across the board. I think data is in the whole NSA data, that’s a broader topic, but it’s around data engineering, data science, data entering, and so on. It’s going to become critical for all of these companies, especially as we go to autonomous operations, data will drive your operation. And so your understanding and your behavior around data from any worker will be important. So the future person that you’re going to have on your site, is got to have basic data 101 competency.
[00:44:54] Peter: Very good point. It’s actually a bit more deeper than I first thought when you start looking at that lower level of personnel as well. I didn’t even comprehend that you automatically think it’s that the status of people that are going to be involved in this.
[00:45:15] Zane: You know, a maintainer of equipment is not going away. Like robots right now, like that’s enough the next 20 or 30 years, that’s not happening. But the systems are going to tell them and predict that to them what they need to maintain, what they need to focus on. And the data that they feed through from their maintenance operations–
[00:45:35] Peter: [00:45:35] is going to be massive.
[00:45:37] Zane: Yes, but it’s massive because the data quality to data outcome loop is very good. So you can’t just put garbage in, garbage out, 100%. You really actually have to have all your sensors working and calibrated. If they’re not, wrong.
[00:45:56] Peter: This is going to do a lot of testing of products. This is going to question the products you use, what roller do you use, what type of hose do you use, what sort of conveyor belt do you use?
[00:46:05] Zane: And that person that’s maintaining it and inspect it, they have to have data 101 competency. They have to be able to enter data properly. They have to have good quality data techniques. If they don’t, you’d actually be like if I’m a GM or a manager, I’m thinking that data is driving my business and making us more efficient. Even if you’re the best maintainer, if you’re not putting in data right and managing it right–
[00:46:29] Peter: Live with the right things.
[00:46:30] Zane: I don’t know if you got a position here. You got to have that basic stuff going.
[00:46:35] Peter: Mate, I’m going to stop right there because that’s another rabbit hole altogether. That’s like an hour conversation alone to how you could structure the data and what you look for and how you enter it and how you get into a format that you can view it from a live point of view. I’m sure from your background for having remote working centers–
[00:46:53] Zane: I think so we’ve taken a different approach, we’re going to go down to what is the behavior need to be? Because I think getting into details about specific data streams or data types or data reviews is the past changed. I think you have to behave in a certain way and we want to be able to help describe that so people can go actually, am I getting in into that space? Am I behaving like somebody that’s a data expert or a data user or a data–
[00:47:21] Peter: I’m going to look forward to seeing the people enrolling your course, so I can then go and approach them afterwards and–
[00:47:26] Zane: And see how they go?
[00:47:27] Peter: I say, “Hey, what’s he like?” Mate, if I covered everything from another CORE or CORE skills, is there anything else you do?
[00:47:36] Zane: No.
[00:47:36] Peter: Not that I’m not aware of?
[00:47:37] Zane: No, no, that’s it. These are the three main things that keep me busy.
[00:47:42] Peter: And obviously, rightly so because they’re all well marketed. Actually, I’m a bit new on the CORE skills. I guess it’s just me because I haven’t–
[00:47:52] Zane: Well, we’ve only run the pilot course so that’s all we ran last year. No, no and I think we had a lot of learning so got a lot to go but it’s on the right path.
[00:48:01] Peter: Cool. I want to talk about– I want to wrap it up because I think that if we keep going, well just turn into a tangent. Talk about what makes you nervous about the industry.
[00:48:14] Zane: Well, I don’t know if, I mean, I think everybody has their certain look at it and their opinion of it so I only have my own of what I’m nervous about within the industry. We are so razor-focused on optimizing the short term that we may just not catch the winds of massive change and a big opportunity. And I think the latest dam break in Brazil in Vale is a great example and is a really good article you can tell in the economist. And the discussion was around the last two or three years Vale’s done a whole bunch of share buybacks and dividends. By the way, a whole bunch of pensioner’s own that stock so it’s like a really important financial return for all these people. But that was not the right decision but all the systems I actually think they’ll probably come out and they’ll see that all the main engineering systems and all the main things were ticked. It was all checked and it was still in utter catastrophe.
[00:49:22] Peter: Because they head a mine not long ago. They headed a mine before this.
[00:49:25] Zane: Yes, correct. It would be an issue. The system is just designed wrong right now. It’s 100% wrong but there’s a lot that’s just designed wrong and we’ve got to figure out how we redesign the system and resources to be much closer to community, much deeper into the rest so that we don’t do that and understanding the long term returns we get, not the short term.
[00:49:50] Peter: Well, it gives us the bad perception it gives us.
[00:49:53] Zane: Well, it was that I have the New York Times app on my phone. It was front page for two days on the New York Times app. New York Times will never present a positive mining article, oh, this rare earth was found, oh this– no, none of that’s going to be there. That tragedy was there for two days so everybody will be thinking about that forever. I mean, I don’t–
[00:50:18] Peter: It’s hard because this is the whole idea of the podcast and me being a mining kid as an example. The tailing slip is a– it’s a fucking big one to be frank and-
[00:50:27] Zane: Yes.
[00:50:27] Peter: -what annoys me is I love and care so much about the mining game and yet what’s happened is what– we do a lot of good things. Look at the stuff we just talked about Unearthed and CORE and women in mining. And you can just go down rabbit holes of how much we had cool– we’re doing things and how much we’re trying to be invested in a social environment and their communities. And yet, we always get moved with the bad thing and what happened from a perception point of view. And I got friends all the time, they say, you miners are just greedy, greedy white men that pump out ore and production and don’t carry anything else and it’s just like that and give that perception.
[00:51:06] Zane: I don’t like, personally it’s a– I don’t know if you are what you– it is out there. There’s not enough good news stories about what’s really going on because probably there’s not enough really going on there.
[00:51:23] Peter: I think there– it’s a good point.
[00:51:25] Zane: I mean, I’m not convinced the system is designed right right now, like I just don’t–
[00:51:33] Peter: You know what, having conversations like this is, you know, I probably need to get someone a lot more smarter than me. I’m asking you questions because you know the amount of technical instruction you can put around this to one, get the basic foundation from a technical point of view you’re on. But to realize if you don’t get it right, what is the actual risk, not just from a life point of view, a shareholder point of view, perception of mining point of view? One mining company has done this and has looked bad on. It looks bad on everyone. I say this as a service provider to my team. They made a mistake a little while ago. A client– Have you had pineapples before? Wonderful, isn’t it? Clients go, “Peter, we’re going to give you a big, big fuck off pineapple,” and I was like, “Wow. It’s a big pineapple.” And I looked at the team and go and the action that, you know, I’m trying to say as an example, what action you take, it might not affect you personally or the company but it affects me personally. And so what action you’ve taken here which is the wrong action or whatever, what are we going to do to learn about it and be different. We’ve had two over in that country in the last two or three years and I went and took the pineapple and I fixed the issue and hopefully, we’ll learn from it and not make that same mistake again. But–
[00:52:48] Zane: The challenge we have is how many times have we done this? And if The Economist had a great– you know, there’s been more tailing damn slips in the last 10 years than the 30 plus before that. We’ve got to get better and I guess what I will be worried about which I think is going to happen is there will be, everyone’s saying that we’ve got to get better. All the leadership’s saying we got to get better and then getting busy just doing the normal stuff.
[00:53:18] Peter: It’s like sustainability, mate. We’re all just trying to get sustainable and then all of a sudden we have produce coming over us
[00:53:24] Zane: Yes, and I mean, if you asked me, I’m one of the biggest fans of mining. We’ve got–
[00:53:29] Peter: I love the same.
[00:53:30] Zane: I mean, we got to have good quality resources to continue to develop the world like it’s 100% we’ve got to have it, we’ve got to do it well.
[00:53:40] Peter: I think we’re on track. I think there are waves of differences happening. What you’re talking about it right now. So this is a concern of ours. This is the future of we’re of roughly around the same age. We’re looking at right over kids around the same age. One of the [00:53:55] like we were trying to look after what the future is going to look like and carry a different mindset and be the change and that’s the only way you can do it is lead by example and people will follow. If an opportunity comes up to do something differently or right and you can do it from a very structured risk point of view, regardless of the checklist you talked about. Look, let’s–
[00:54:14] Zane: Part of it we’re, I mean, it really the– we talk about CORE making a global innovation hub in that capability. You’ve met the people on CORE. They’re great. They’re working hard at mining challenges but these are capable entrepreneurs, capable and technical people. You throw them a challenge in healthcare, you throw a challenge in financial markets or in the consumer space, they’re going to be able to go at it. They’re competent. They’re competent in delivering new products into an industry. That’s much if you think about the safety of your community and the safety of your state, that’s a much better place to be in. Having competent people that aren’t just a mining engineer that knows only that but can deliver new novel products and entrepreneurial space, like you’re much more resilient.
[00:55:00] Peter: I hate to actually what you think of our government but because you know it’s a whole another question altogether but you’re right, the competent people is a must. I want to move it on because we can get in another rabbit hole again here. To wrap it up, I want to know what you’re most excited about because obviously, I know you just touched on a little bit then but there’s a lot to be excited about, to be frank. And I mean [00:55:22] tangent about. We could probably get it right in that tangent about what [00:55:27] I could have done differently and that sort of stuff but as an example, there’s plenty to be excited about and you just talked about it then. This makes me really, really off the chain excited. Meeting guys like you and I mean, we obviously know each other a little while, having a few beers here and there, but to go into this depth conversation about the competent people and the stuff we’re doing in the future.
[00:55:46] Zane: Yes, Australia is a global resources innovation hub. It’s the place to come to do innovation, to build the products [00:55:55] I’m really excited about that. I think we can build it.
[00:55:59] Peter: Well, technically you already are. You’re underway.
[00:56:02] Zane: The seeds have been sown.
[00:56:03] Peter: Well, in the end of the day, how many people out there are actually making these sort of steps?
[00:56:07] Zane: There’s a few. I think there’ll be more activity in the space but I think we’ve got a good foundation.
[00:56:13] Peter: Yes, I do too, mate and that’s why I’m hanging around, jump on the wires, hanging out, it would be nice. I’m really enjoying the journey what I’m seeing so far and looking forward to the future especially in Brisbane potentially, and the new GM, and the cool stuff that’s happening. I want to say thanks for coming on. I don’t want you to invoice me for the hour [00:56:33] in the podcast but thanks for giving me your time to come on.
[00:56:38] Zane: No worries. It’s been good.
[00:56:39] Peter: And I look forward to talking to Paul and Justin and Tameron and everybody else. We’ll line up a bit more for schedule to it later on. To do a bit of a podcast series, but what’s the best way for people to get hold of you personally or as the companies are? What’s the best way to go about it?
[00:56:55] Zane: Well, jump on the website. Most of the emails still go to me.
[00:57:00] Peter: I’ll chuck a lot of these in the show notes.
[00:57:02] Zane: Unearthed.solutions. We have all the competitions up there, information, about past competitions, past challenges, and then corehub.com.au.
[00:57:10] Peter: Cool mate. Thanks very much for coming on Full Production, buddy.
[00:57:13] Zane: Yes, appreciate it.
[00:57:14] Peter: Cool.
[00:57:14] Zane: Appreciate the opportunity. Cheers.
[00:57:16] Male Speaker: Zane, thank you for taking the time to come on Full Production and thank you to all of our listeners. Stick around because we have plenty of new guests [00:57:25] coming up in future episodes of the podcast. And don’t forget to join the Full Production Facebook group to get amongst the conversation and keep up with the latest. Catch you next week. Cheers.
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