Callaghan Innovation funds OHS app Forsite

Smartphone-based health and safety solution has been announced as a recipient of funding from Callaghan Innovation.

The app is designed to reduce injuries and deaths in the construction and property industries globally.

The research and development grant is for an initial three-year term and is capped at $15 million.

The funds will go towards enhancing the Forsite solution and potentially creating new Forsite products.

Simon Yock, Forsite co-founder and CEO, says he and the Forsite team are beyond thrilled to have been awarded the grant.

"While the grant provides important investment into the development of the Forsite solution, the most exciting thing for me is that I have no doubt it will help to reduce the number of injuries and possible deaths which occur in our workplaces every year – this is the very reason we developed Forsite in the first place," says Yock.

"The grant is also a humbling endorsement by New Zealand's lead technology and innovation agency of our team's incredibly-hard work to date and strongly supports and enables our future growth.

"Forsite is currently being used by customers in New Zealand and Australia and has appointed a reseller in the United Kingdom.

"We expect our revenues from exports to grow over the next three years," he says.

Since 2011, 321 people have lost their lives in workplace accidents in New Zealand, while in 2015 alone, 230, 200 claims were made to ACC for a work-related injury – with 31,000 of these for entitlement (i.e. more serious) claims.

Workplace injuries and deaths cost New Zealand $3.5billion per year.  A death costs a business at least $1,000,000 – most New Zealand businesses (the 95% that are less than 10 staff) do not survive such a

A death costs a business at least $1,000,000 – most New Zealand businesses (the 95% that are less than 10 staff) do not survive such a tragedy.

"Looking at the stats you can see what reducing injuries and deaths in NZ workplaces alone, could do for organisations and our GDP," says Yock.

Forsite was conceived in 2015 between Yock and private property and fund managers Property Managers Group (PMG), which was looking for a solution for its own portfolio of properties to protect its people, tenants and investors from injury as well as prosecution under new health and safety legislation.

It is now the only health and safety solution in the country of its kind to provide real-time health and safety tracking, recording and monitoring.