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Subscriber only People from all over Australia are travelling to Mackay to take advantage of one of our greatest assets. Fewer than three months after the Resources Centre of Excellence flung its doors open to the world, its general manager Steven Boxall said business was booming.
The facility held an open day in November, which gave participants a chance to see first-hand the industry innovation and development happening right here in Mackay. Mr Boxall said the vision for the centre was to allow business and industry to use the space to develop the technology and the jobs of the future .
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Subscriber only In a major coup for the Mackay region, nationally significant virtual reality technology will now be on hand for businesses to trial and integrate into their sphere. The major technical leap will allow companies in the region to explore and test out how they can incorporate virtual reality into their workplaces. Mackay s Resources Centre of Excellence has partnered with the Queensland University of Technology to design the virtual reality and augmented reality technology. RCOE general manager Steven Boxall said this was something industry did not have access to previously. Everyone hears of VR and AR and how it can be used in the industry, but for a lot of businesses, they don t have the time or money to develop the software then acquire the hardware to be able to implement that sort of training in their business, Mr Boxall said.
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Subscriber only It goes without saying how tumultuous the business scene was in Mackay throughout 2020 because of COVID-19. Many were shocked when long-established businesses folded under the pressure of an unprecedented environment of lockdowns and quarantines. But amid the chaos, there were also new starts as entrepreneurs took a risk despite the uncertainties. We took a look back through the 2020 archives to collate the most notable examples of businesses that thrived and those that dived in the year that was. The Mackay institution since about the mid-1930s closed its doors in August, allegedly having been in gradual decline for years.