Smart 100 2010

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.

We saw businesses struggling to advertise themselves, unsure of where to start and lacking in time, money and media experience. We created a trusted marketplace matching available media space, both rate card bookings and ‘last minute’ deals, with those businesses wanting to purchase advertising. All types of media are available, including: TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines and Digital (online). We developed the Last Chance Ads marketplace to be: fast, easy to use, open 24/7, media company independent and offering businesses the opportunity to search, find and purchase - all in the one place via the web or mobile.

Our NPD team started to dream about a way to take Australia's rainwater collection experience to the world. As people globally begin to see how they can contribute to the water cycle through the collection of rainwater we asked, "How can we get Australia's learnings over the last decade, put it all in one product and make rainwater simple? Let's make a product that people won't need to worry about, will find easy to use and will let them contribute to our water system."

Papyrus Australia founder Ramy Azer previously sold traditional papyrus in Europe and realised the demand for this environmentally-friendly paper was greater than supply. After completing a Mechanical Engineering degree in SA, Azer investigated alternative fibre resources readily available in Australia and various manufacturing processes. Following a detailed research and selection process, banana trunks were identified as an ideal choice. Papyrus’ pilot plant was established in Lonsdale, South Australia in April 2007. In February 2008, Papyrus established its first commercial manufacturing facility at Walkamin in Far North Queensland. In November 2009, Papyrus successfully began continuous production of its banana fibre products.

A research team custom-built a 3D laser range sensor for mapping the environment from a moving vehicle. The research group had previous experience with 2D laser mapping and positioning, and when extending their work to three dimensions was required to overcome a number of challenges. Most significantly, acquiring a full 3D scan takes much longer than a 2D scan, and therefore the data is susceptible to distortions due to the vehicle's motion. A software solution was developed and tested with the sensor mounted on a Bobcat driven around our research facility.

A sales manager asked his employers for fast information on other sales regions performance. In discussions with other people in other jobs, he noticed that every person wanted fast information without being bombarded with email, and the concept of SBI was born.

Dr. Peter Cooper and Dr. Nikolai Petrovsky met at a social function in Canberra and realised that they shared a common interest in research into improved vaccines. From this initial research collaboration, Advax, a novel plant-sugar-based ingredient that enhances vaccine action, was born. Advax is now a leading ingredient in vaccines being developed in Australia, the US and Japan against pandemic influenza, HIV, malaria and a range of other infectious diseases.

The inventor, Henk Van Harselaar, is Dutch born, came to Australia at 18 and has been a trainee pastry chef, car salesman, property developer in Hervey Bay and a pilot. The Aurora System had its genesis, in the great Australian tradition, under Henk's house and on his kitchen table. Henk is an incorrigable tinkerer and has invented a few other things along the way. The spark for the germ of the idea occurred in Henk's mind 20 years ago when he saw pictures of 15th-century windmills and initial prototypes looked very very different.

Having worked on insurance claims as a carpenter, Brian Siemsen identified the need for a better way for insurers to conduct repairs. He was surprised at the attitude of tradespeople who would charge anything because it was an insurance job. He had heard of minor jobs taking as long as 180 days to complete. He believed these attitudes had developed due to the limited ability of insurers to monitor and quality control the repair work. So he set out to develop IntelBuild –- an online system that gives insurers the power to monitor each job, regardless of where it is.

...cofounders Marita Cheng and Mark Parncutt heard about the Melbourne University Entrepreneur’s Challenge. While only in their first three months of university, they vowed to come up with an idea and enter. A few weeks later, Mark was hanging out with his friend, when she suddenly jumped up and exclaimed, ‘Drats! I forgot to take my antibiotics!’ Mark thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if she received a text message reminder on her mobile reminding her to take her medication?’ An idea for the challenge was born, and Marita and Mark took out first place in the Undergraduates Division of MUEC.

... I read a book about how surgeons can do better. If medical doctors measured treatment results and received feedback about it, their patients did a lot better compared to patients who had treatment by doctors who did not audit themselves. I am a gynaecological cancer surgeon and responsible for the lives of a large number of women. The idea "how we can do better" is the passion of my life. I developed SurgicalPerformance mostly for myself and the thousands of medical doctors around the globe to enable them to provide better treatments for their patients and become better doctors.

The founding technical directors came together in 2006 as individual contractors to contribute specific intellectual property to some unique product development. In 2007 the group identified a safe, environmentally friendly opportunity: an energy efficient, direct replacement for halogen downlights. The science behind Indice Ecotech had started to evolve at that time and it was recognised that it could make a meaningful contribution to saving lives, property and the environment. This valuable research has produced a rich suite of additional lighting products that will replace old inefficient and costly products in fields that naturally lend themselves to Indice Ecotech’s control technology.

The following SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during ...

Emily found herself limping home barefoot after a rather fancy wedding and had found herself in this rather unladylike position a few times in the past, and decided to take action giving ladies the opportunity to get home with (most) of their dignity intact for under $20. The Tipsy Toes concept was researched and product developed between January and June 2009; it was then the business name was registered after some serious "sole searching" for the right name...

We were looking for solutions to our clients’ needs for social media monitoring and analysis. We found many technical solutions that provided data but could not allow for human sarcasm, vernacular, industry jargon, spelling errors, abbreviations, etc., and so provided inaccurate or irrelevant analysis. If someone tweets “I’d kill for a Cadbury chocolate” it would be scored as a negative when in fact it is a positive. We realised that to provide a genuine understanding of how a brand, product, or person was being positioned online we had to have a human being evaluate, analyse, and score every feed individually.

AutoCarLog was created as a result of a challenge, a challenge to build a successful technology startup in just seven days and for less than $500. It was born from the need to modernise paperback vehicle mileage logbooks with a convenient, fast, environmentally friendly and tech based approach.

The following SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during ...

We developed this solution around Wincor Nixdorf's solution, however the EPA of South Australia requires that these machines pay end users cash at collection point. These Reverse Vending Machines will be used thru out the state of South Australia as a start. Recyclates are captured in a clean fashion and all empty plastics, cans, and bottles are recycled. Hence, a cleaner environment for people using this technology. The modern day "cash for cans".

LEVESYS personnel were reflecting on development projects for annual software upgrades. Always aiming to deliver greater value to clients with each upgrade, we surveyed our clients to identify where they were experiencing costs and brainstormed ideas to lower these costs. The concept of Perspectives was born and we knew we were onto something as the idea grew and evolved and the benefits to our clients became more evident as did our enthusiasm for the project as an organisation.

Lauren noticed many SME enquiries did not convert to sales in her traditional list-broking business due to the high cost and large volume of data required for minimum order standards. Automating the supply process through mailinglists.com.au eliminated associated labour expenses and brought the minimum order value down from $1,500 to $29.95, thus creating a new business model opening the market to SMEs to finally access mailing lists in an affordable, timely and self-directed manner.