Think Digital
Cluster Connect Partipant
Think Digital
Transforming how agriculture communicates, trains, and educates. Think Digital uses virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), 360° video, and AI to create experiences that immerse audiences in agricultural systems — increasing engagement, improving safety and training, inspiring learning, and helping stakeholders make better decisions.
Business Type
Founded
Location
Enterprise Scale
Target Market
Focus
Background
Society is experiencing a shift in how content is consumed — moving from 2D media like books, screens, and TVs to immersive 3D experiences that surround and engage users. Think Digital was founded to help food and fibre industries adapt to this change.
Drawing on their farming backgrounds, founders Tim Gentle and Kat Bidstrup integrate skills in immersive technology, videography, IT, and communications to make complex agricultural systems tangible, relevant, and easier to understand for modern audiences.
The Challenge
Across training, education, and public awareness, agricultural industries faced similar problems: passive content that didn’t fully convey the experience, low engagement, and critical information failing to stick. From biosecurity and animal welfare to workforce attraction and public perception of food production, the stakes were high — but the medium wasn’t working.
Think Digital addressed this gap by using immersive technology to transform knowledge into understanding, increasing engagement, improving training outcomes, and helping stakeholders act on the information they receive.
What They Changed
Think Digital reimagined how agriculture communicates, trains, and educates by putting audiences inside the experience rather than asking them to imagine it. Their approach integrates VR, AR, and AI in ways that:
- Shift learning from abstract to experiential: Complex (sometimes opaque) issues such as biosecurity and animal welfare are made visible and interactive, giving users a direct understanding of what to look for
- Increase engagement and retention: Audiences actively explore, manipulate, and make decisions in immersive environments rather than passively receiving information
- Support decision-making and behaviour change: By simulating high-stakes scenarios safely, users can practice skills, test choices, and understand consequences without real-world risk.
This is achieved through bespoke XR and AI solutions (not off-the-shelf VR) co-designed with clients to reflect real-world agricultural contexts, ensuring relevance, credibility, and impact.
Program Experience
Think Digital engaged with the Industry Growth Program (IGP) to not only explore funding pathways, but clarify its unique value proposition.
Despite it already being an established company, IGP helped Think Digital clearly articulate what it does, who it serves, and how its service-based model creates value. This clarity has reshaped their growth strategy, particularly around scaling the business internationally.
Beyond formal programs, collaboration remains central, with co-designed solutions developed alongside clients, competitors, and educators.
Outcomes So Far
Think Digital has translated its immersive approach into tangible results across education, training, and communications in agriculture:
- Immersive learning at scale: Programs have been delivered nationally and internationally, reaching hundreds of thousands of students, producers, industry professionals, and government stakeholders
- Mobile XR classroom deployed: A full-size coach converted into a travelling virtual learning environment has reached regional communities with limited access to advanced training, allowing hands-on experience in realistic agricultural scenarios
- Enhanced workforce readiness: VR simulations for machinery operation, animal handling, and compliance procedures have improved skill acquisition and increased trainees’ confidence, supporting safer and faster workforce onboarding
- Improved public awareness and perception: Virtual farm tours and interactive programs for Meat & Livestock Australia and Woolworths have allowed chefs, buyers, and the public to experience Australian agriculture first-hand, strengthening trust and transparency in food systems
- Innovative health and biosecurity tools: AR biosecurity experiences and the AI-enabled Remote Vet app allow producers to identify and assess livestock health risks faster, safer, and with greater accuracy, while maintaining privacy
- Measurable engagement and comprehension gains: Client feedback indicate strong information retention, confident skill application, and ability to adopt recommended practices.
Think Digital demonstrates that immersive XR experiences deliver educational, operational, and engagement impact — moving beyond novelty to measurable outcomes that improve understanding, decision-making, and adoption of best practices across the agrifood sector.
Sector Impact
Think Digital demonstrates how new approaches to communication can transform engagement, learning, and understanding across agriculture. Its approach enables:
- Better comprehension of complex systems
- Higher uptake of biosecurity, welfare, and compliance procedures
- Career pathway inspiration in food and fibre
- Scalable solutions for workforce training and public education.
By aligning content delivery with how audiences now consume and experience information, Think Digital helps agriculture connect meaningfully with stakeholders, turning knowledge into action.
Goals & Vision
Think Digital aims to expand its immersive solutions globally while maintaining a strong focus on food and fibre. Plans include growing its mobile XR classrooms, increasing AI-enabled applications for on-farm and remote engagement, and scaling programs for educational institutions, industry, and government partners.
Its vision is to make immersive technology a standard tool for training, education, and public engagement across the agrifood sector.
Advice for Other Startups
For startups looking to scale, Think Digital has a learning for other founders: get an understanding of what the business might look like without the founders in control. Successful scaling requires more than just being brilliant at what you do — it’s also about building processes, documenting knowledge, and creating repeatable ways of working. This enables new hires or contractors to hit the ground running, allows outsourcing without a loss of quality, and ensures the business can grow even if (or when) its founders step back.
Just as importantly, those systems are anchored in a clearly defined culture. Think Digital operates under a set of internal “agreements” that guide behaviour and decision-making. Because these agreements are embedded into everyday practice, the business can assess opportunities consistently and confidently, including the ability to say no to work that does not align with its purpose (even when it is commercially attractive.) That ability to walk away has become a strategic advantage. It protects focus, reinforces credibility in the market, and ensures growth compounds in the right direction.
For founders, Think Digital’s advice is clear: systems enable scale, but values determine the trajectory.