Western Sydney's Pitch to Become Health Tech Hub

Innovation outside the inner-city.

The Western Sydney suburb of Westmead is staking its future on transforming into a “globally renowned” health innovation hub, creating up to 50,000 roles for knowledge workers by 2036.

While Barangaroo is being marked as a fintech hub and White Bay as a potential home for Sydney’s start-up ecosystem, the Sydney Business Chamber is pressing Westmead as a home of innovation in the west.

“If embraced by government, Westmead provides the opportunity to deliver 50,000 new high-value, specialist knowledge economy jobs by 2036 in the Westmead precinct,” the director of Sydney Business Chamber in Western Sydney David Borger said.

Achieving that kind of growth is dependent on Westmead transforming into a “globally renowned Innovation District”, using a concept created in Toronto, Canada.

Westmead has some of the pieces already, including an “established ecosystem of leading public and private health, education, and medical research anchor institutions”, according to a report by Deloitte released this week.

It also has a pool of STEM talent. “In 2011, more than 71,000 residents living within 30 minutes of Westmead held degree or higher qualifications in the fields of science, health, engineering, mathematics and IT,” the report said.

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