OG Co-founders & directors, Trent Nester & Ben Barsanti, attend the 2024 SME MineXchange Convention & Expo in Phoenix, Arizona. The 3 day event attracts around 5,000 attendees from all over the world with exhibitor booths for mining companies, mining contractors, suppliers, universities, and service providers to showcased a variety of technology and innovation ideas.
Making the most of a trip to the northern hemisphere, the next stop was Toronto for the internationally known, Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) Convention. This years event hosted 26,926 people across the 4 day event with 33% travelling from outside of Canada. There was more than 1,100 exhibitors, including governments, companies, suppliers and leading experts from around the world.
It was a great opportunity to meet & engage with mining stakeholders from Canada and across the global. We discussed geotechnical resourcing and education with representatives from mining companies, consultancies and universities mining and see whether other countries are facing the same challenges we are in Australia. Unfortunately, they are too.
We enjoyed discussing the operational aspects of mining, particularly the involvement of geotechnical engineers, and were pleased to find many like-minded people in the crowd. There is still an huge demand for companies to source pragmatic engineers with the ability to problem solve using a combination of technical knowledge and operational nous.
In amongst the conferences, we were able to find some time to visit the Grand Canyon and a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game.
