Tag Archives: Unearthed

OZ Minerals invests in seven hydrogen experiments as part of Hydrogen Hypothesis challenge

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As part of the Hydrogen Hypothesis challenge, seven teams have been selected to take part in the OZ Minerals’ Think & Act Differently (TAD) accelerator program.

The focus of the challenge, launched at the end of March, was to identify experiments that can demonstrate the safe and effective use of hydrogen in a mining context, with the aim of providing OZ Minerals insight into how hydrogen can be used to support zero or low carbon processes.

It was underlined by the miner’s strategic aspiration to eliminate Scope 1 emissions and strive to systematically reduce Scope 2 and 3 emissions across its value chain.

There were 158 participants in the OZ Minerals and Unearthed Hydrogen Hypothesis challenge, from 35 countries.

Brett Triffett, OZ Minerals’ Transformation Technologist, said: “The mining sector has the opportunity to leverage the progress made in other sectors and explore the use of hydrogen technology in its operations.

“The finalist teams were chosen because they have proposed ideas that have the potential to demonstrate the value hydrogen technologies and applications could create for our industry.

“These teams also demonstrated their willingness to work and learn together with each other and OZ Minerals. The OZ Minerals TAD incubator acceleration program is designed to create as much mutual value as we possibly can, rather than just transacting an experiment for funding.”

The program, according to Triffett, includes frequent capability uplift sessions on a range of topics so participants come out with something more than just a funded experiment.

“Many of the finalist teams are not from the mining industry and are keen to learn more about how the industry works,” he added.

These insights are embedded through regular insights panels with members of OZ Minerals’ broad ecosystem. They also come together with a technical mentor to gain valuable feedback on the technical aspects of their work with one another.

The teams selected are

  • Avid Group (Aaron Teo) – Hydrogen powered lighting towers;
  • Carbon 280 (Mark Rheinlander) – Hydrilyte storage system – safe hydrogen transport and storage at atmospheric temperature and pressure;
  • Carnot (Francis Lempp) – Ultra efficient ceramic engine;
  • Fly H2 Aerospace (Mark Van Wyk) – Hydrogen-powered drone;
  • OZ Minerals (Steve Day) – Hydrogen highway;
  • Supercritical (Luke Tan) – High pressure electrolyser; and
  • Yakum Consulting/Queens University (Yeonuk Choi) – Produce clean metal products from concentrate using green hydrogen.

OZ Minerals partners with Unearthed to encourage hydrogen innovations for mining

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OZ Minerals has partnered with Unearthed to encourage innovators to come up with safe ways of applying hydrogen in the mining value chain and help decarbonise its operations.

Hydrogen Hypothesis is a Think & Act Differently™ (TAD) initiative powered by OZ Minerals, the companies said. It is underlined by the miner’s strategic aspiration to eliminate Scope 1 emissions and strive to systematically reduce Scope 2 and 3 emissions across its value chain.

OZ Minerals explained: “The use of hydrogen as a green, low carbon energy source is one of the most widely explored subjects on the planet today. In our journey towards zero carbon emissions, OZ Minerals recognises the importance of hydrogen and we want to better understand the potential uses cases.”

This challenge invites innovators from inside and outside the mining sector, across the globe to propose safe experiments to demonstrate the role hydrogen could play in the mining value chain and help OZ Minerals learn how it can support a transition to low carbon emission operations, OZ Minerals said.

The challenge, open to companies, teams and individuals from any industry including mining, energy, aerospace, transportation and others, is looking for mature or early-stage hydrogen technologies and concepts that can be applied to mining.

Launched today, it has a final submission deadline of May 28.

OZ Minerals’ TAD incubator is a process and ecosystem designed to facilitate novel and challenging ideas that will accelerate the implementation of its strategy, the miner said.

“Our challenges are focused on themes aligned with our aspirations, namely Clean Products, Energy & Emissions, Waste & Water, Scalable & Adaptable Assets and Data & Technology,” it said. “The TAD process involves framing opportunities, diverging in our thinking to generate ideas, converging on experiments that we can use to test the best ideas, and then accelerating these experiments by providing funding, access to sites and support in developing ideas.”

As the challenge closes, select teams will be invited to participate in the TAD incubator’s Convergence and Accelerator phases, with the latter expected to run from June 28 onwards.

South Australia government invites explorers to trawl Gawler Craton exploration data

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The South Australia Government is to host a A$250,000 ($169,397) crowd-sourced open data competition to fast-track the discovery of mineral deposits in the state.

Called ‘ExploreSA: The Gawler Challenge’, it will see the government partner with open innovation platform, Unearthed, in a worldwide call for geologists and data scientists to uncover new exploration targets in the state’s Gawler Craton region.

Using the Geological Survey of South Australia’s historical records, primary data and research, the competition combines geological expertise with new mathematical, machine learning and artificial intelligence to increase the number of potential drill targets across central South Australia, Unearthed said.

South Australia Minister for Energy and Mining, Dan van Holst Pellekaan, said: “This state-of-the-art competition has the potential to unearth the next Olympic Dam or Carrapateena by encouraging global thinkers and innovators to interrogate our open-file data and generate new exploration models and ideas for targeting.

“Mining is one of the pillars of the South Australian economy and this competition should add to the pipeline of projects in the resources and minerals processing sector.”

He said the state’s existing inventory of discoveries suggest there are “major prospects” and many other deposit styles and commodities to be identified, with this competition only serving to bring those internationally significant discoveries forward.

“ExploreSA is an example of the bold and progressive thinking required to assist industry in accelerating the state’s annual economic growth rate to 3%.”

All targets generated, including those from the winners of the A$250,000 prize pool, will be publicly shared to increase innovation and understanding in the resources sector by enabling access to data science approaches and modern geoscience thinking, according to Unearthed.

Unearthed Industry Lead – Crowdsourcing, Holly Bridgwater, said the competition served to leverage data science to its full potential at a time when significant new discoveries are becoming rarer.

“This exciting crowdsourcing competition and world-class open dataset will attract a global community of innovators, some whom won’t have worked in the mining industry before,” she said.

“We can’t wait to see how they will apply their diverse skills, fresh ideas and novel approaches to mineral exploration to accelerate discovery in South Australia.”

Earlier this year, OZ Minerals partnered with Unearthed on an online crowdsourcing competition to find new exploration targets at the Mount Woods tenements of the Prominent Hill copper-gold mine, in South Australia.

ExploreSA: The Gawler Challenge will open early next year. To find out more, visit: https://unearthed.link/ExSAGC_IM

Africa startups to pitch to industry at Mining Indaba

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Three startup technology companies will have the chance to present at the world’s largest mining investment event as part of an agreement between energy and resources open innovation platform Unearthed and organisers of the Investing in African Mining Indaba conference.

The trio of companies will get this pitching opportunity as part of the Startups Unearthed Africa initiative, taking place on day three (February 5, 2020) of the Mining Indaba, in Cape Town, South Africa.

The announcement follows a collaboration between Mining Indaba and Unearthed that gave four emerging technology businesses from Africa the chance to present at the 2019 event.

Unearthed explained: “Startups Unearthed Africa aims to shine the light on partnerships between startups and industry operators or service providers that have delivered value to the resources sector.”

Applications are open to any technology company based, or operating, within Africa that has a case study to share showcasing the successful adoption of an innovative mining technology solution, according to the organisers. The three successful applicants will then get the chance to present to around 750 investors and dealmakers, leaders from over 220 mining companies, and 34 government ministers, Unearthed said.

In addition to awarding three pitching spots, each partnership will receive one full complimentary pass to Mining Indaba, taking place from February 3-6. Finalists will also receive recognition and exposure through Unearthed media channels to the broader mining industry.

Industry Lead – Crowdsourcing at Unearthed, Holly Bridgwater will moderate this session, saying that the organisers wanted the presentations to highlight where resource sector leaders and startups are working together successfully to solve key problems for the mining industry, showing the rest of the industry how this is done.

Investing in African Mining Indaba Senior Conference Producer, Catriona McDavid, said: “Startups are undoubtably a driving force for innovation. Through our Mining 2050 Programme, we are proud to play our part in advancing digital economy opportunities for Africa, and we look forward to welcoming the three successful startups and their partners to present to our global audience, and hope this stimulates greater industry collaboration across the startup community.”

To apply for Startups Unearthed Africa, visit: https://unearthed.link/SUA20 and submit your application before October 14, 2019.

OZ Minerals Explorer Challenge winners crowned

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OZ Minerals has awarded multiple prizes as part of the online crowdsourcing Explorer Challenge, organised in partnership with energy and resources open innovation platform Unearthed.

The submissions for the crowdsourcing competition to find new exploration targets at the Mount Woods tenements of the Prominent Hill copper-gold mine (pictured), in South Australia, ranged from cutting edge machine learning to advanced physical modelling, with OZ Minerals making more than six terabytes of public and private exploration data available to competitors.

The three month long competition concluded on May 31, 2019, having seen over 1,000 global participants from 62 countries register for the chance to not only win a A$1 million ($701,156) prize pool, but also have its concepts tested in real life, with the top targets scheduled to be drilled by the end of 2019.

First prize (A$500,000) went to Team Guru, a team made up of Michael Rodda (data scientist), Jesse Ober (environmental scientist) and Glen Willis (process engineering) for an approach that included interpretable machine learning models for mineral exploration using geochemistry, geophysics and surface geology.

Second prize (A$200,000) went to DeepSightX, a team made up of Dong Gong, Javen Qinfeng Shi, Zifeng Wu, Hao Zhang, Ehsan Abbasnejad, Lingqiao Liu, Anton van den Hengel, Karl Hornlund, and John Alexander Anderson. This team exploited multi-disciplinary skills at the intersection of artificial intelligence and geoscience, leveraging this to generate an artificial intelligence model to provide promising exploration targets in the Prominent Hill Region (PHR) supported by best practice geoscience.

Third prize (A$100,000) went to Hugh Sanderson, Derek Carter and Chris Green from team Cyency. Cyency has a strong data science and geoscience background, with Sanderson practising “deep learning” for several years, Carter being involved with the technical and software side of mining for over 10 years, and Green being an experienced geologist. The team said: “With so much data, it was difficult to know where to start, so we started with what we knew – the results from the Data Science Stream. We had a set of models that we knew were pretty good at predicting mineralisation across Australia, so we ran them over the tenement…we applied several data science techniques to estimate a set of candidate points, and then selected the 10 best of these.”

The Student Team prize of A$50,000 went to deCODES’ Christopher Leslie, Matthew Cracknell, Angela Escolme, Shawn Hood, and Ayesha Ahmed. A team of early career researchers from CODES, University of Tasmania, its approach was driven by considering an iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) metallogenic model, and then “striving to produce digital proxies for all aspects of that model. Our prospectivity layers were created using a mix of manual and traditional data handling methods as well as basic machine learning approaches”.

The Genius prize (A$25,000) went to Team OreFox’s Warwick Anderson, Sheree Burdinat, Kudzai Dube, Amy Leask, Alan Ryou Pearse, Ashleigh Smyth, and Nick Josephs. The brainchild of two exploration geologists, Anderson and Burdinat, OreFox has built up a team of experts with backgrounds in geophysics, data science, statistics, geology and prospecting to tackle the Explorer Challenge, using its proprietary artificial intelligence systems to analyse the data supplied by OZ Minerals as well as open source data obtained through Geoscience Australia and the SARIG database.

The Insights prize (A$25,000) was awarded to Avant Data Solutions, a multidisciplinary team consisting of data science and programming, and geological domain expertise. The team took a heavily data driven approach with verification and interpretation using geology, with the challenge tackled, first, by analysing and exploring the data in detail and finding what data might be overlooked.

The Data Hound and Fusion Prizes (both A$25,000) went to Team Phar Lap and SRK Consulting, respectively.
Team Phar Lap consists of a mathematician, a physicist, a German trained geologist and ecologist, a pilot, and a US trained geologist, offering a latticework of geosciences and data science. The consortium used a mixed approach between geological interpretation and data crunching with a strong focus on controlled learning.

SRK’s team was made up qualified structural geologists across offices in Perth, Melbourne, Toronto and Vancouver, with “the approach including the re-interpretation and/or value-add of the provided and available datasets followed by a multi-pronged and integrated targeting approach applying data-driven machine learning (based on a balanced random forest algorithm) and weights of evidence to guide a set of knowledge-driven mineral systems informed fuzzy inference solutions”, Unearthed said.

OZ Minerals Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Cole, said: “The innovators who participated in the Explorer Challenge have provided approaches to mineral exploration that we never would have imagined internally, including ways to fuse datasets together, combining multiple layers of information, and making predictions based on the extensive datasets.

“Reviewing the diverse range of solutions that have come back from this process has been truly remarkable.”
Unearthed Industry Lead – Crowdsourcing, Holly Bridgwater, previously worked for a decade as a geologist in resource exploration and definition. She believes that crowdsourcing will transform the lengthy and intensive exploration process.

“We are extremely excited by the incredible range of solutions submitted by these pioneers that can generate high quality exploration targets in an efficient way,” Bridgwater said.

“Many industry professionals and mining companies are beginning to realise that their true competitive advantage in exploration is speed, not necessarily data or technological intellectual property. I think that the ability that the crowd gives you to generate new ideas, develop solutions, and automate processes, is something that can make a big difference and provide that competitive advantage.”

OZ Minerals and Unearthed Explorer Challenge goes live

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The Explorer Challenge has officially kicked off, with more than 2 TB of OZ Minerals project data going live and more than 1,000 global innovators on a wait list to test the limits of data science and geology by developing groundbreaking approaches to mineral exploration, Unearthed says.

OZ Minerals and Unearthed, an energy and resources open innovation platform, partnered to deliver this online crowdsourcing competition to find new exploration targets at the Mount Woods tenements of the Prominent Hill copper-gold mine (pictured), in South Australia.

Unearthed said: “Economic mineral deposits are becoming increasingly difficult to find. Geologists regularly spend years collecting and analysing disparate data, frequently testing hypotheses, from huge areas of land, often for little or no reward.

“Explorers are looking for new approaches to solve this problem and develop innovative processes and ways of working that can drive up the discovery rate and, in doing so, decrease the number of holes drilled for less environmental and economic impact, resulting in a more sustainable and efficient future for mineral exploration.”

Crowdsourcing is a process by which such a problem and the accompanying data is made available digitally to third parties from around the world, who then compete to deliver the best solution.

In addition to a A$1 million ($713,785) prize pool, the winning model on the Explorer Challenge will be tested in real life, with the top targets scheduled to be drilled by the end of 2019.

OZ Minerals’ Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Cole, said: “The iterative process of collecting different datasets, followed by geological interpretation can take a long time. The Explorer Challenge is one way we can speed up the exploration lifecycle and analyse information at a much faster rate.”

Unearthed Industry Lead – Crowdsourcing, Holly Bridgwater, said: “Geologically speaking, the key advantage of crowdsourcing is for us to be able to assess an area of ground much faster. Instead of accessing a few opinions, you have access to hundreds and potentially thousands of opinions and you can use that collective brainpower in a short period to collate many different interpretations and see where potential targets might be.

“All the different data collected has the potential to give signals and indicators and when analysed in different ways, gives the best opportunity to highlight points of difference and generate new thinking to help find the prized needles in the haystack.”

The Explorer Challenge will run until the end of May, with winners announced in June.

OZ Minerals teams up with Unearthed to set Explorer Challenge

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Mining company OZ Minerals and energy and resources open innovation platform Unearthed have partnered to launch the Explorer Challenge.

This online crowdsourcing competition calls for geologists and data scientists from across the globe to develop ground-breaking approaches to discover new exploration targets at a site near Oz Minerals’ Prominent Hill copper-gold mine in South Australia, with a A$1 million ($722,497) prize pool to be awarded to winning ideas, Unearthed said.

Prominent Hill sits within the Mount Woods exploration tenements in northern South Australia. The mine has been in operation since 2009. The site for this competition is the remaining land of the Mount Woods exploration tenements surrounding Prominent Hill.

OZ Minerals’ Chief Executive Officer Andrew Cole said: “We’ve taken an approach from outside our industry and applied it to the challenge. This gives us potential access to thousands of scientists’ ideas and data, compared to our relatively small team of in-house geologists – a different and diverse perspective to interpret our exploration data.

“The challenge presents a number of benefits and, importantly, helps us gain new insights and find new approaches to push the boundaries of our geological understanding of the area.

“The challenge is a continuation of our digital transformation journey, which we started two years ago when we migrated all our exploration data to the Amazon Web Service cloud. We want to find ways to work smarter with all the data we’ve got, not just geological data, and challenge existing concepts of how we are harnessing it.”

The Explorer Challenge seeks to test how the global mining and resources industry may leverage data science to its full potential in the future.

Unearthed Founding Director Justin Strharsky said mineral exploration is difficult and economic mineral deposits are rare: “During the exploration process, the iterative process of collecting different datasets, followed by geological interpretation, can take a very long time. Vast amounts of data are collected and processed, and very often this does not result in a discovery.

“The Explorer Challenge will speed up the exploration lifecycle and allow us to analyse information at a much faster rate than before. This competition represents a fundamental change in approach to problem-solving. Data science techniques can be used for exploration and many other challenges faced by the industry.

“This is a very real example of the future of work within the industry in general and exploration, in particular. Organisations must understand the business-as-usual approach in this industry will no longer suffice. The traditional borders of our companies must be expanded virtually to include people with different skills and perspectives from around the world. If your approach to digital skills is to hire people who happen to live near your HQ on the basis of a CV or a degree from a school you recognise, you’re doing it wrong.”

Participating innovators will put their skills to the test and develop solutions for the duration of the 10-week online competition and compete for not only A$1 million in prize money, but also the chance to have their winning model tested in real life, with the top targets scheduled to be drilled next year, Unearthed said.

OZ Minerals will announce the Explorer Challenge at the South Australian Exploration and Mining Conference held at the Adelaide Convention Centre on December 7, 2018.

Interested participants can register their interest at the Explorer Challenge site and will be notified when the competition opens in February 2019. Entries close May 2019, and winners will be announced in June 2019.

Africa emerging tech firms set to take to the stage at Mining Indaba

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Unearthed and Investing in African Mining Indaba have partnered to offer four African emerging technology businesses the opportunity to pitch their innovative industry solutions at one of the  world’s largest mining investment conference on February 6, 2019, in Cape Town, South Africa.

Startups Unearthed Africa is an online competition aimed at raising the profile of African hardware or software companies across the global mining sector, with applications open to any business across the continent that has a prototype, product or service that can impact industry.

“Companies do not need to have worked on a mining project before, they just need to have exciting technology solutions that can make a difference,” Unearthed and Indaba said in a joint press release.

The four successful applicants will be able to present to approximately 750 investors and dealmakers, leaders from over 220 mining companies, and 34 government ministers.

In addition to awarding four pitching spots, each startup will receive one full complimentary pass to Mining Indaba that runs from Monday to Thursday.

Industry Lead – Crowdsourcing at Unearthed, Holly Bridgwater will moderate the startup session showcasing these upcoming transformative mining technologies.

Bridgwater said: “I am excited that we have the opportunity to share some of the amazing tech being built across Africa with an audience of potential customers and investors at one of the world’s largest mining conferences.”

Investing in African Mining Indaba Managing Director, Alex Grose said the mining industry has been perceived as an old-fashioned sector, but it’s not the case as technology has rapidly been changing the way the sector operates.

“From AI and big data to new satellite technologies and more efficient production, mining companies are embracing innovation. We are very proud and excited to be running this fantastic initiative together with Unearthed, set to bring new ideas to one of the world’s oldest industries as well as provide four African tech startups with exposure to the world’s largest mining companies,” said Grose.

To apply for Startups Unearthed Africa, visit: https://unearthed.link/SUA and submit your application before November 30, 2018.

Unearthed is an organisation that generates opportunities for entrepreneurs and helps improve the efficiency and competitiveness of the global resources sector through hackathons, online competitions, and a technology accelerator. Since 2014, it has connected over 5,000 innovators to over 100 industry challenges, producing over 400 prototype solutions.