Bruce McCallum
Bruce studied electrical engineering at Canterbury University for the best part of the 1980s, partly due to Christchurch's proximity to great cycling, tramping, skiing and music.
He then worked on super-resolution imaging in electron microscopy at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge UK. While there, he met a colleague from Canterbury, and over a picnic of fine English ales and cheeses in Hyde Park, they hatched a plan to make a magnetically-tracked handheld 3-D laser scanner. They both returned to NZ and co-founded Applied Research Associates NZ Ltd (ARANZ) to develop that idea into a product. That scanner was used for applications ranging from scanning models for Lord of the Rings to making custom prosthetics for amputees. Software developed to process the scanner data was also applied in other fields, including geological modelling.
Bruce spent some time living in the southern bays of Banks Peninsula, and trapped there to protect the nesting white-flippered penguins. He now divides his time between Lyttelton, Banks Peninsula and Aotea/Great Barrier Island.
Bruce enjoys brainstorming ideas with Marcus, and navigating the convoluted journey of taking an idea through to a product in the hands of people that are making a difference by protecting our natural environment.