Smart 100 2011

This innovation initially came to life when Rod, keen environmentalist traveler and rideshare advocate, met Ross, expert online marketplace developer. Rod was certain that creating a carpool and rideshare network as complete and functional as a bus network was a real possibility. Ross, bringing his knowledge with online marketplaces, developed the execution which made it a reality.

We conducted some analysis of the rewards credit card market for our website and discovered that the vast majority of rewards credit cards fail to deliver real value for Australian consumers. We were gobsmacked to learn that some cards even put consumers in the red, charging more in fees than they deliver value in a year. It was time someone made it easy for the average person to compare rewards cards and rewards types, and to expose the sneaky marketing tactics banks and financial institutions have long used to promote ‘rewards’ cards.

Aviator is a venture spun out of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia. Leveraging UTS’ proprietary software around thought classification for controlling electronic devices, the venture is developing a wheelchair control solution to respond to the needs of the severely disabled and paralysed.

We realised that although there are 6.8 billion people of the earth, only 2 billion have the Internet. However, they are now getting online at record rates. While people join up, looking to improve their socio-economic situation, the Internet began delivering a tectonic shift to the global labourforce. Freelancer.com was created to facilitate this shift -- by connecting businesses of all sizes to the world's largest liquid workforce -- over 2.3 million professionals.

This innovation came to life after seeing how poorly managed were many hundreds of keys held in businesses such as real estate, especially building managers' large premises as they used low-security-level paper records to keep track of these valuable keys. I have wanted to introduce this some years back, however my research needed to establish the best way to collect data from keys and their tags.

The transport regulators and state road authorities decided that Line Haul Transport Operators must operate their business to a stringent set of complex Fatigue Laws in 2009. These laws fall under a strict Chain of Responsibility (CoR) legislation designed to make heavy vehicle fleets safer. Unfortunately the fatigue laws that have been implemented, although great in theory, are impossible to manage in practice, in manual format as a work diary.

This innovation arose from a desire by the originators to give themselves control over their own electronic identities and online information. The first germ of the idea started when one of the team started to write his story and wondered how he could prove his story was not fiction. The ideas became more focused when the developers of the idea had to identify people for an online payments service. The development started when it became apparent the AML/CTF legislation required organisations to reliably identify people and there was no privacy-friendly service on the market.

We realised many businesses were failing to take full advantage of the power of software to improve their business, despite a compelling business case and many options available. We explored many different ways to serve end-users directly and get paid by them, but eventually concluded they generally lacked enough budget for software selection support. At the same time, we were being inundated with approaches from software vendors keen to find new customers. The light bulb went on...

An NSW-based company, Flovac, has developed a deployable sewage treatment system that could answer the health need of military encampments and emergency refugee camps. The products earned the runner-up spot in Anthill's SMART 100.

We wanted to create something that connected to the average Australian. The financial planning industry ignores people who have simple goals and not large amounts of money -- we wanted to help and connect with people from all walks of life.

There was a call from the male population for better personal care, but there was no one advertising the fact that they would do the male Brazilian wax. Enter Ouch Waxing Studio. We openly advertise that if you have hair there we will wax it with no embarrassment.

I used dynamometers as an apprentice, to test diesel engines. I wanted wind-powered heating as part of a desalination unit – to make fresh water from the sea.

A major mobile operator in the UK approached our channel partner to see if they could help determine if smartphone applications (iPhone, Android, etc.) were causing congestion and outages in the mobile network. We quickly modified our mobile web analytics platform to analyse mobile application traffic and develop a series of new reports that provide unprecedented insight into smartphone application usage and associated network impacts.

A good client asked for a unique team-building program that would enhance the team's ability to think creatively, collaborate towards a result that created a legacy, embedded the team's purpose and values and led to a deep level of understanding between team members. I combined my corporate team-building experience with my songwriting and recording capability and designed the team song experience.

Two Harvard Business school students met and exchanged ideas about whether crowdsourcing could be applied to the fashion industry. We identified a way to leverage the internet to connect independent fashion designers with customers around the world, and have the crowds curate the marketplace.

My professional background as an accountant collided with small business ownership when I bought a surf shop. I knew I needed to get my tax completed just like any small business owner, so I took my “folder” to my tax accountant. He was gobsmacked by how organised my tax information was. I was also developing my own clientele as an accountant, and clients’ tax accountants commented on how easy it was to complete their tax returns as all the information was at hand, so I researched producing a commercial version of the system I was using for myself and clients.

I had the idea that a community-based approach to energy measurement and control could better help people to save energy and money, to share and learn. And so, the Smart Energy Groups project was born.

I had friends who travelled often for business and would find themselves suddenly in a city with nothing to do and no one to do it with. As you often purchase event tickets months out from events, it is difficult for the business traveller or last-minute purchaser. Also, it can be very lonely to attend events on your own. I decided to build a site where people could meet and connect with others, without the "online dating" stigma attached. And it would provide an opportunity for people to offload or buy last-minute tickets without having to deal with scalpers.

Be There came about from a combination of the Black Saturday bushfires, the devastating flooding that occurred in Queensland, and the feedback from Silicon Valley for Jasondb, our new NOSQL database. Be There was an initiative designed to allow people access to information in real time from a combination of "verified" organisations as well as crowdsourced individuals.

Duc Ngo, inventor and CTO of JMango, got tired of re-writing every app he made to work on multiple mobile devices. Traditionally, developing apps for multiple operating systems took way too long and required specialist skills resulting to mounting costs. He found this to be inefficient and too expensive, not to mention tedious, repetitive and just plain boring. So he set out to create his own solution and the result was the JMango Mobile Platform.