About Us
Enabling Australian technology companies as the ‘go-to channel’ for bringing local innovation to market
Our People
The Australian Innovation eXchange is building on the knowledge and experience of the Industry Growth Centre program, by enabling Australian technology companies, as the ‘go-to channel’, to bring local innovation to market. Our team has extensive experience supporting the commercialisation of research and innovation, making AIX the ideal partner to bring new technology to market.
Adrian Beer
Managing Director
Adrian Beer is a global executive with a broad range of industry experience within industrial technology solutions, enterprise software, to leading business transformations projects and initiatives across a vast range of capital-intensive industries.
His technical background is in electrical engineering, working extensively across resources, energy generation, transmission and distribution, water utilities, transportation and defence.
Adrian was the former CEO of METS Ignited, a Federal Government Industry Growth Centre for Mining Equipment, Technology and Services (METS). Adrian a non-executive director of Robotics Australia Group, and holds advisory board positions including Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources (NIER), SMARTSAT CRC, and The Energy and Resources Advisory Board of AROSE.
Dr David Skellern, AO FTSE FIEEE Hon.FIEAust
Advisor
Dr David Skellern worked in radio astronomy for 10 years and taught electronics at the University of Sydney and Macquarie Universities for 16 years before coming to prominence in the IT industry through Radiata, which he co-founded in 1997. Building on joint research at Macquarie University and CSIRO, Radiata demonstrated the world’s first chip-set implementation of the 54Mbit/s lEEE 802.11a high speed WLAN standard. Radiata was sold in 2001 to Cisco Systems Inc, where Dr Skellern was Director, Technology of the Wireless Networking Business Unit until 2004. He was appointed to the Board of National ICT Australia in 2003 and was Chief Executive Officer 2005-2010.
Dr Skellern was formerly on the Board of the Capital Markets CRC (CMCRC) as a Director 2004-2019 and Chair 2013-2019, then Chair of RoZetta Institute Ltd (formerly CMCRC) 2019-2022 and on the Boards of eight other RoZetta group companies.
Dr Skellern is currently Chair of Quasar Satellite Technologies Pty Ltd, Semiconductor Sector Service Bureau (S3B), Australian Innovation eXchange Pty Ltd (AIX) and The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), and a Director of Trovio Pte Ltd and digi.cash Pty Ltd.
Our History
AIX was formed through the success of METS Ignited’s Industry Growth Centre. In operation for over six years, METS Ignited successfully supported the commercialisation of technology to address the needs of the global resources sector. Our program invested $15M in 30 Australian technology projects, commercialising 20 new Australian innovations, creating more than 1000 new jobs. Today these technology companies have projected revenues of over $750 million by 2025 and serve multiple industry sectors. Building on this success, AIX is translating Australia’s research and innovations into products and services, to serve global markets, delivered by local Australian technology companies.