Many companies that list on the ASX do so with the promise of “going global” once they are listed, however not all of them manage to live up to that promise.
One recent ASX listing that looks like it might be good for its word however is Perth based Shark Mitigation Systems who have just secured a contract to protect the worlds best surfers with their “Clever Buoy’ shark detection technology.
The World Surf League is the Governing body of international surfing and they have just awarded Shark Mitigation Systems a contract to deploy their Clever Buoy technology at the J-Bay Open world surfing event at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa next month.
The World Surf League are still smarting from the amazing near death experience of their champion surfer Mick Fanning at the same event last year when he came within a whisker of being taken by a White Pointer.
This year they are taking no chances and after what was no doubt an exhaustive worldwide search for shark technology, they have settled on Perth based Shark Mitigation Systems “Clever Buoy” to protect surfers at next month's event.
Clever Buoy is a marine buoy that sits just beyond the surf break at a beach and it is capable of sending a wireless signal back to lifeguards on shore. According to Shark Mitigation Systems, every fish in the ocean, and particularly sharks, have their own unique “fingerprint” which is the way they swim.
Clever Buoy gets its name because it is smart enough to detect the swimming pattern of a shark and it will then send a signal via the Optus network back to the beach alerting lifeguards to the presence of a shark.
It was recently trialed at Australia’s most famous beach in Bondi NSW and received rave reviews from the Bondi Rescue life guards involved with the trial.
Andrew “Reidy” Reid, a Bondi beach surf life saver involved with the trial who shot to fame on the TV show Bondi Rescue, said of Clever Buoy; “We use a tool called a defibrillator, and I’ve seen it save….. 50 lives. Clever Buoy is the first piece of technology that we have seen in a while that has the capacity to do the same thing.”
Australian life saving’s governing body, the Australian Professional Ocean Lifeguard Association who oversaw the Bondi trial said “The Bondi trial was an overwhelming success and demonstrated Clever Buoy’s commercial viability, with Clever Buoy logging and alerting numerous shark detections, many of which were able to be positively validated through visual identification by the Bondi professional ocean lifeguards.”
"It is the Association view that the Clever Buoy shark detection system is currently the only commercially available detection system capable of deployment in high surf zones....”
The Clever Buoy project was initially seed funded by Google as part of its community service obligation and it has also been financially backed by Optus who are no doubt about to enjoy a bit of world wide publicity through their involvement with the project.
Shark Mitigation Systems Co-founder Craig Anderson said: “We are very excited to be working with the pro surfing league to showcase our technology and provide critical safety information to the organisers of this event.”
“This will help place our technology on the world stage, showing what it can do to keep surfers and other ocean users safe in the water.”
By Matt Birney
