Smart 100 2010

A mortgage broker with a conscience realised that the reason MOST people need to borrow MORE money is because they don’t have a budget. Further research showed that not only have most people under 60 NEVER been taught how to set one up, but there was NObody that offered a service to coach and teach people this skill. Many times people are told to ‘do a budget first’ but there are very few people who actually KNOW how to start.

This innovation initially came to life when two of the founders, Mike and Michael, were looking for a new, innovative online retail product to launch in Australia. The third founder, Jodie, had been designing her own shoes and having them made in Asia for a while. The three co-founders figured this could be done online and the idea for Shoes of Prey was born.

The Lab Creative was launched in April 2009 -- a dynamic live experience agency that deals in producing live corporate events and has revolutionized corporate team building in Australia. Securing some of the nation's largest companies -- such as Coca-Cola, Amatil, NAB, and Wesfarmers -- this is an inspiring story of vision and belief that creativity is the key to unlocking the best potential out of corporations all over the world. We are the interface between the corporate and creative -- it is a proven science.

Researchers at the ANU collaborated with Volvo in Sweden to explore advanced driver safety systems based on monitoring the driver (instead of monitoring the vehicle or environment). Using a video camera and video image analysis the team learnt to accurately track and monitor the driver's face and facial features. That technology allows the driver's eyes to be monitored (open or closed?) and to track the direction the driver is facing (looking at the road or not?). Crucial innovations along the way include coping with eyeglasses, sunglasses, working night and day, and being fully automatic and remaining off-body/non-contact.

This innovation initially came to life when a typically short snow season left the inventor thinking about how he could get the snowboard experience all year long. A love of extreme sport, a desire to ride a board off-road all year long and huge amount of ingenuity allowed the inventor to construct a proof of concept. It took 10 years from having the idea to riding the proof of concept in 2004. The outcome will be the best of skating / snowboarding / motoX all combined into one awesome electric powere off-road product.

This innovation initially came to life when two of the founders, Mike and Michael, were looking for a new, innovative online retail product to launch in Australia. The third founder, Jodie, had been designing her own shoes and having them made in Asia for a while. The three co-founders figured this could be done online and the idea for Shoes of Prey was born.

The innovation came to life when Modra Hayes was approached by a number of fly in/fly out miners to solve the quality of accommodation problem that existed in remote locations around Australia. Traditional mining accommodation was considered to be uncomfortable, dirty, and not aesthetically pleasing or attractive to live in. The modpod™'s use of composite fibre technology was specifically designed to redress the deficiencies of traditional mining dongas. Modra Hayes has also designed and is constructing a modpod™ Mass Production Facility (MPF) capable of producing one modpod™ or more per eight-hour shift.

I developed an interactive touch-screen system for a food outlet that I owned. The aim of the system was to entertain my customers whilst they waited for their order. The system interleaved in-store advertising in between the ‘entertainmentʾ. My now business partner was a smallgoods representative that serviced the store. He saw the product and, seeing the possibilities, we quickly formed a partnership and collaborated over many years to develop the Q In-Store Advertising System with Now Serving module.

We used to be an outsourced sales and marketing organisation conducting campaigns for SMEs right up to large brands such as 3 mobile. We now use this ability of putting in place a sales and marketing division, in order to acquire a large equity stake in the businesses we work for. We have now become a hybrid blend of a private equity firm and a sales and marketing organisation, implementing sales systems and structures in exchange for up to 40% ownership in the business. A model such as this is a world first.

A need became apparent during water restrictions in Australia. Water authorities now apply water restrictions in litres per day. There was a need for a product which measures litres and provides easy monitoring and control of water usage outside of the home. The Neta Litre Meter was co-developed by two Australian companies. In addition, a litre-based watering method was included to help save water. It provides an easy guide to the correct amount of water to use on the garden. This further enhances the benefits of the Neta Litre Meter. The guide is included on packaging and promotional material.

In 2008: the recognition of the reality of climate change by society, governments and forward-thinking businesses. For business, staff engagement and behavioural change are fundamental to the success of a large-scale change. Organisations have a need for sustainability education that can be delivered in a practical format, actively engaging the learner and encouraging behavioural and cultural change. Change2 is an off-the-shelf, scalable online solution, delivering interactive sustainability modules which can be accessed by all staff. It encourages further discussion and communication of sustainability practices within organisations and is supplied with online tools to facilitate ongoing behaviour change.

This innovation came to life when we realised a gap in a developing segment in the telecommunications market. With telecommunications becoming commoditised, many entrepreneurs have joined the groundswell of companies offering innovative product mixes in voice, Internet, data, PBX, and hosting segment. While there are plenty of wholesale providers of these services, No one in the market has delivered an end-to-end BSS/OSS platform (front, middle, and back office solution) for these innovators. Utilibill Lite empowers such players to be competitive and offer first-class service while minimising overheads that were previously required to set up a telco.

This innovation came to life after a discussion with a friend who owned an Ice manufacturing and distribution business in Adelaide. I noticed there was a blank space on one side of the bag and asked him why he didn't sell the space off to advertisers. We also discussed the vast opportunities due to his distribution network into all supermarkets and convenience stores. From this we looked at potential markets and agreed to trial the concept through his business.

This innovation initially came to life when my business partner and I recognised that Australians had almost no flexibility when it came to the use of gift card vouchers. We soon discovered that the market was worth about $1b and that 1 in 3 cards were never redeemed, representing an incredible waste. We wanted to provide a service that gave people the option to use gift cards as they wanted to. A market study demonstrated that similar services existed in North America but not yet in Australia.

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A bright idea in response to a customer’s need to analyse multi-dimensional data, led to the development of a new type of business intelligence (BI) software by QlikTech in Sweden in 1993. They called this new software QlikView because it provided a point-and-click simple way to view data. QlikView is now a global phenomenon and delivered to Australia by Inside Info since 2003. The founders of Inside Info could see that the time, cost and complexity of traditional BI software was underwhelming. They chose to change this, developing QlikView applications that greatly simplify how businesses measure and analyse business performance.

Founders Sarah Taylor and Jeff Dusting realized how time consuming and unsatisfactory it was to locate, book, and pay for home, health and beauty services, and how few service providers had access to efficient low-cost online trading.

My business partner, Matt, and I work at MTV, Matt in Digital and me in Marketing. The idea for The Loop was born out of my frustration in finding fresh creative talent - we were overly dependent on word of mouth and incredible people were slipping through the net. On the flip side, Matt, being the digital guy, was constantly being asked by other creatives for advice on the best way to build their own websites to showcase their work online and promote themselves to potential employers. We brought these two frustrations together and The Loop was born.

I started my own financial planning firm in 2010, with insurance for tradesmen and women being our target market. Insurance for tradies is quite unique in that the minimum requirements are set by the various state and territory governments depending on the type of trade. As we started to field enquiries from tradies, we noted that many of them had no idea of their insurance responsibilities under the relevant laws. As we grew our own knowledge by doing research on our clients' behalf, we saw the opportunity to collate this information and create on online insurance resource for trade workers.

I moved to Sydney and noticed there are a lot of great time-based deals being offered by businesses all around the place, e.g. ‘Two-for-One cocktails between 6 - 8pm’. At the same time I had just bought an iPhone and quickly realised that the iPhone provided a great way to effectively create a really efficient and effective marketplace for this type of deal information due to its web connection and GPS technology. Having also worked for Wotif.com and seeing the power of their marketplace I was made even more aware of the opportunity.