A 12 month-trial will offer app-based hearing checks to Meals on Wheels recipients in Sydney, with potential to expand the program nationwide. It’s one of seven 2024 NSSN Grand Challenge projects.

Innovative smart sensing projects which promote sustainable beekeeping practices, empower oyster farmers to navigate floods and heatwaves, and help identify hearing issues in homebound older people have secured funding in this year’s NSSN Grand Challenge Fund. 

This month we celebrate diversity and International Women’s Day; read a wrap-up of the Sensing the West Forum in Parramatta; and learn about the new low-cost "lab in your pocket" device created by UNSW researchers.

The NSSN Sensing the West Forum has heard there is great opportunity for innovative smart sensing solutions to reduce risk and enable evidence-based decision making in Western Sydney. 

The definition of a smart sensor is described in lay terms in this Thought Piece by the NSSN’s Business Development Manager, Laura Earl.

As we celebrate Harmony Day, we recognise the breadth and depth that cultural diversity brings to the NSSN, and the valuable contributions that researchers from all different backgrounds bring to smart sensing research.

This International Women’s Day we are proud to highlight several researchers in our network who identify as women and whose work is connected to smart sensing: from wearables and compression stockings, to bushfires and nanosensors.

Biosensing technology developed by a team of UNSW engineers and led by NSSSN Ambassador Scientia Professor Ewa Goldys has made it possible to create gene test strips that rival conventional lab-based tests in quality.

In the month’s newsletter, read about the NSSN Sensing the West Forum to be held in Parramatta this month; learn how managers of natural disasters and smart city initiatives can integrate dual-use smart sensors; and read about engineer and gender equity champion Dr Negin Shariati.

Leaders from government, industry and research will explore how innovations in smart sensing can benefit new Western Sydney developments such as the Western Sydney Aerotropolis (pictured) at the Sensing the West Forum in Parramatta on March 13.