Best of the week — the five most popular stories among readers, May 19 – May 23, 2025

What were the five biggest stories of the week? Here’s what visitors to @AuManufacturing were reading.

5) Introducing Spotlight on Scaling Up: an unmissable June 25 event about one of Australian manufacturing’s key issues

@AuManufacturing is excited to announce an upcoming event on the morning of June 25, in partnership with BDO, the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre, and the Australian Business Growth Fund.

An all-star cast of experts will examine the need for more manufacturers to outgrow their boutique origins — helping create a more diverse, resilient national economy — and how it can be done.

4) Kite Magnetics receives $3.6 million seed investment from SQM Lithium Ventures

Electric motor startup Kite Magnetics, which won a Top 10 Gold Award at this title’s Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers awards last week, has received a $US $2.2 million (approximately $3.6 million) seed investment from SQM Lithium Ventures.

According to a joint statement from the two companies on Monday, the investment is part of Kite’s “Seed+ funding round”, led by SQM.

Kite is a developer and maker of stator cores, a key component in electric motors and generators, making use of a nanocrystalline magnetic material based on Monash University research and known as Aeroperm.

3) DroneShield awarded $1 million local law enforcement contract

Counter-drone company DroneShield has been selected by an unnamed Australian law enforcement agency to deliver a contract worth “over $1 million”, which it said is part of “a broader initiative to moderni[s]e law enforcement tools” and address the growing risks posed by unauthorised drone activity.

DroneShield makes products involved in spotting and disabling unnamed aerial vehicles (UAVs.) In a statement on Wednesday, the ASX-listed company cited its “multi-layered solution suite” enabling officers to detect, assess, and neutralise rogue drones “with speed and precision

2) Monash claims research could see compact rooftop flow batteries on the market “in a few years’ time”

A new water-based battery developed by Monash University research engineers could one day help households “store rooftop solar energy more safely, cheaply and efficiently”, according to the university.

The new battery makes use of a “new membrane design [which] fixes the speed problem” normally attached to flow batteries, and which normally limits their use to large-scale storage applications.

PhD candidate Wanqiao Liang (pictured), the lead author of a new paper in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, said the team used a non-toxic, affordable chemistry based on abundant materials, and able to keep up with rooftop solar energy on a sunny day.

1) Between Botswana and the Ivory Coast: Australia dives further in economic complexity rankings to 105th

The newly-returned government’s ambition to make Australia a manufacturing powerhouse comes with its difficulties, as newly-updated Economic Complexity Index (ECI) rankings show Australia in its worst placing yet.

The rankings are published by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Growth Lab and go back to 2000. They measure the sophistication and diversity of a country’s exports.

An official announcement on the most recent rankings – and an updated set of information for individual countries, including growth projections based on the ECI – will happen in the near future, the Growth Lab told @AuManufacturing on Tuesday (Australian time.)

Picture: Tim Ayres (credit Powering Australia/Linkedin)