Danny Bishop & Chris Duffield

With a shared entrepreneurial spirit, Danny’s systems engineering expertise and Chris’s business acumen, the two co-founded Organic Response, an innovative Australian engineering company that is revolutionising lighting control technology, in 2011.

Organic Response technology utilises Distributed Intelligence, employing wireless communication to control lights. By applying Distributed Intelligence to lighting control, Organic Response technology allows each individual light in an occupied space to make lighting decisions. The result is a highly flexible, energy-efficient lighting control system that is incredibly simple and cost-effective.

This focus on energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness places Organic Response at the forefront of the sustainability movement, both locally and globally. A key aim of Organic Response is to build a product that works in developing countries.

The sustainable focus of their mission is owed in part to ANU, which they credit as having an “emphasis on sustainability across the board”. Even more important to the success of Organic Response, however, have been the networks and contacts that Danny and Chris established at ANU. Many ANU alumni have played significant roles in the development of the company.

Organic Response now has eight full-time staff, a handful of contractors and casual staff, and more than 35 investors. As well as making headway in the local market, Danny and Chris have started engaging with partners in the United Kingdom, Japan and South Africa, with a view to exporting their technology across the globe.