Aidan Morrison
Originally trained as a physicist, I think these days I’m best described as an entrepreneur, with interests in data analytics, military technology, and hospitality.
Born and raised in Launceston, Tasmania, I attended Launceston Church Grammar School before moving to Canberra to study at the Australian National University. I completed a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours. My majors were in Physics and Theoretical Physics, and my thesis was in Theoretical Particle Physics, on Kaon Decay in the Generation Model. I took up a Ph.D. scholarship to the University of Melbourne were I worked on experimental particle physics, on the ATLAS experiment at CERN.
I left my PhD uncompleted to start life as an entrepreneur, setting ambitious goals that were in some ways also akin to tilting at windmills.
My first venture, Rubber Ducky Defence, was inspired and informed by my experience calculating collision cross-sections of subatomic particles. Certain principals applied well at other scales, and I decided to challenge the idea that bigger ships were better at winning naval battles. Rubber Ducky has advanced designs for a small boat and torpedo optimised for swarming tactics, including one granted patent in the US.
My second venture sought to challenge the notion that quirky bars with cool cocktails were the preserve of the inner-urban elite, and couldn’t possibly survive anywhere South of Surry Hills and North of Melbourne. With a few friends I’d met while working hospitality shifts to support my efforts with Rubber Ducky, I opened Bat Country, a bar/cafe/restaurant in the South-Eastern Suburb of Randwick inspired by the life and works of Hunter S. Thompson.
For a couple of years I worked in a private research institute where I was heavily engaged in research and modeling relating to economics and public policy. Recently I co-founded Trendlock with Ross Ireland. This venture seeks to challenge the idea that big-data will be most useful to big companies and government agencies who have the means and money to collect and analyse it. We’re using the best of open-source programming (particularly R) to make the power of big-data technologies like data-mining, machine-learning, and statistical forecasting available to medium and smaller enterprises.
I’m married to a beautiful French woman called Constance who I met several years ago while setting up Bat Country, which we still frequent. She drinks margaritas, I drink negronis, and we both love a blottle of woody chardonnay. I’ve come to love swimming since living near the beach, though still love to run, particularly when I can escape the city to get off the beaten track, as I used to almost daily in Canberra. When I can escape for a few days, white-water kayaking or skiing are my favouite outdoor activities.