DeakinCo, the commercial arm of Deakin University, has partnered with Cann10 Australia to launch the Medicinal Cannabis Leadership Program in Melbourne, an education program for medicinal cannabis.
The program aims to further the growth of Australia’s medicinal cannabis industry by bringing together both science and industry leaders in the space from across Australia, the US, Europe, and Israel to help participants understand both the scientific and commercial aspects of the industry.
It will take participants through a series of key knowledge areas, including history and sociology, agriculture and genetics, extraction and manufacture, biochemical science, legislation and regulation, and commerce and research and development.
Consisting of lectures, workshops, and webinars, the program will be led by Dr Henry Pinskier, chair of the John Curtin Research Centre; Professor John Rosenberg, former Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor at La Trobe University; and director Rhys Cohen, an industry expert.
Among those delivering lectures and workshops will be Dr David Meiri, an assistant professor at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology; Mara Gordon, founder of Aunt Zelda’s and Calla Spring Wellness; and Phil Warner, managing director of Ecofibre.
Professor Jon Watson, dean of the School of Medicine Faculty of Health at Deakin University, said, “It is with great satisfaction that I am able to endorse Cann10’s unique approach that takes in basic biomedical science, agriculture and cultivation, and also entrepreneurship. This is very unusual, but also fit for purpose.”
The launch of the program comes at a busy time for the Australian medicinal cannabis sector; the use of medical cannabis for patients with chronic or painful illnesses was made legal under the Narcotic Drugs Amendment Act last year, with supply coming from a Victorian cultivation site and import into Australia on a case-by-case basis.
With regulators coming around, local accelerator BuddingTech last month announced a partnership with global cannabis software and POS solutions company Guardian Data Software that will see GDS clients leverage BuddingTech’s analytical research and consultancy services, with the two organisations to also work together on new educational and research programs.
It follows a rush of medicinal cannabis companies launching on the ASX. One of the latest to make its debut was Israeli startup eSense-Lab, which has created technology to ‘reverse engineer’ the production of a plant’s terpene profile.
With an initial focus on the cannabis plant, the company produces a product that resembles cannabis in both its smell and taste and medicinal benefits.
The Medicinal Cannabis Leadership Program will be one of the first programs run by DeakinCo, which launched through the merger of Deakin University’s workforce capability development business, DeakinPrime, and its credentialing business, DeakinDigital, last month.
DeakinCo looks to provide a “modern, flexible approach to learning in the workplace to enhance workforce capability”.
Simon Hann, CEO of the new entity, said, “Our user-centric approach and innovations in credentialing, combined with our link to Deakin University put us in a unique position as the only learning and professional development partner with end-to-end capability enhancement offerings for workplaces.”
Image: Mara Gordon. Source: Green Flower Media.
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