Smart 100 2011

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Community Wellbeing Model (SMART 100)

After generations of disadvantage in marginalised Australian communities, Evolve director Kerry Grace realised there must be a better way. Kerry met with colleagues in the Nambucca Valley and commenced developing the 'architecture' to make significant and sustainable change in the community.

Customisable Eyewear (SMART 100)

Daniel He, an optometrist, first worked in an optical store in the late 1990s selling eyewear. Too often a customer was dissatisfied with one or more aspect of shape, colour, material or size of the glasses they purchased. Most compromised and settled for something that was mass-produced. Now, a decade on, this problem was a recurring theme. So he out to change this, in an industry dominated by multinational companies.

321 Water (SMART 100)

It came to life after reading Anita Roddick's book of collected essays, Troubled Water, which amongst other things predicted wars on water in the 21st century. It was not long after, when I was tackling more water-related dilemmas, I determined that the conundrum of bottled water could use a marketer's approach. The notion that in a country where there is perfectly safe tap water available it is ridiculous that we are quenching our thirst with bottled water. My solution: 321 Water.

Who Gives A Crap (SMART 100)

I was sitting on the toilet. I realised that toilet paper has seen little to no innovation in the last 50 years. I also realised that global sanitation is a huge problem that is underfunded because people don’t like talking about toilets. In a split second the idea was born: toilet paper that uses 50% of its profits to build toilets in the developing world.

Smart Energy (SMART 100)

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.

Brightgreen’s DR700 LED Downlight Replacement Bulb (SMART 100)

Brothers David and Barry O'Driscoll started Brightgreen, an LED lighting company developing products that match a halogen on brightness while using only a quarter of the power and lasting up to fifteen times longer. Brightgreen’s latest cutting-edge product is the DR700 -- the world’s first LED downlight replacement bulb to match the brightness of an average halogen and to be compatible with all existing transformers and dimmers. This means that LED replacement bulbs are now simple, fast and hassle-free to install, making them ideal for a mass market.

T-Line Safety System (SMART 100)

I was working as a Graduate Engineer on the construction of an onshore LNG Gas facility. We had to maintain extremely high safety standards whilst working at height during construction. I was surprised by the lack of innovation in the safety products available at the time. None of the existing products were able to provide the levels of freedom and safety that we required. I couldn't help but think that there must have been a better solution, which is when I came up with the fundamental concept for the T-Line -- a concept that remains today in the current version.

SmartyGrants (SMART 100)

Over $23 billion is given out annually in grants funding in Australia by government, philanthropy, corporates and NGOs, and there is no standardised solution, application process or management and acquittal process. $23 billion and not one standard operating system. Started from the ground up after a series of "Grants Rage" sessions by grant applicants on the tragic state of technology, systems, process and learnings exchange, SmartyGrants was born.

Smart-Trace Monitoring System (SMART 100)

Inventor Don Richardson was approached by AFGC with a problem that its food industry members were confronting; it had to do with improving and monitoring the refrigerated distribution of perishables -- foods and pharma products -- during distribution. The industry wanted a more responsive way to ensure their product food safety. Richardson was then granted patents in numerous OECD countries for its unique business process.

Young Republic (SMART 100)

We discovered there were no online platforms/marketplaces that empower young or emerging Australian designers to reach their goals. The purpose of this innovation is to empower young and emerging Australian designers.

My Wheels (SMART 100)

When I went to purchase my first car, there were so many things I did not know and did not understand about the process. After a great deal of research and conversing with friends I still made a lot of mistakes. Realising how much research and street know-how is required, I created this iPhone application, which can help at the most important time, when you actually go to look at and purchase a car.

Beanhunter.com (SMART 100)

Whilst in my hotel room at night I would search Google for "The best coffee in..." the city where I was staying. I found this process exhausting and it usually came up with mediocre results. So a couple of years ago upon arriving back in Melbourne I had a chat with coffee-loving friends James Crawford (Web Developer) and Adam Lowe (Psychologist) and the concept of Beanhunter was born.

Mouse Eye Tracking version 4 (SMART 100)

Mouse Eye Tracking enables online marketers, webmasters, web designers and developers to analyse and generate actionable insights that drive online marketing strategy. This is achieved via three key features: Heat Maps, Mouse Tracking and Page Navigation. These features give Mouse Eye Tracking the unique ability to record and display user interaction on each web page.

DIGIVIZER technology & solutions (SMART 100)

Clinton Larson and Emma Lo Russo, ex-Macquarie Bank colleagues, came together to explore the impact that the social web and changing technology were having on traditional businesses, especially those looking to compete globally. After testing the opportunity, they launched DIGIVIZER in July 2010 -- a solution that finds the digital footprint of people organisations know (their customers) or people they should know (prospects) on the social web.

OrionVM Cloud Computing Platform (SMART 100)

Some members of this team were trying to build an Artificial Intelligence 'Learning' search engine that required plenty of computing power. After seeing what was out in the market, the idea to build a High Performance Cloud computing company was born.

Roar Engine (SMART 100)

It started with some WILD questions about building games for the emerging "social game" space. Crazy stuff, like what if you could build "Farmville" in a week? What if you could press a button and have a cross-platform, scalable, social game application layer instantly available? What if we could distill the core mechanics of social games into a highly configurable, easy-to-use system so that game developers could focus on creating amazing game experiences, rather than figuring out how to build complex server infrastructures...

JMango Mobile Development Platform (SMART 100)

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.

DeepCloud MPP database (SMART 100)

After working with companies that needed to store massive and growing data collections on computers that could no longer match their growth in I/O capacity each year, we realised that eventually all these companies must resort to parallel processing of their large data collections. They simply have no other direction to go in. Our approach was to bring together the best available technologies to make the world's fastest MPP system that permits simple expansion beyond the size of the largest systems in operation in the world today.

The Cullector (SMART 100)

My mum always used to catch the initial volume of cold water discharged from her shower in a bucket and use it on the garden, but a few years ago, when she hit her mid-70s, she abandoned the practice because it was just too much hard work. With water restrictions also in place due to the drought, I decided to invent a better way to collect and use that water. The Cullector is the result of that inspiration, although it’s taken several years and 14 prototypes to perfect it!

Deployable sewer system wins runner-up spot in Anthill SMART 100

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.
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