Smart 100 2011

I proposed taking practice firms into a 3D platform. Previously, students formed companies that existed only on paper and traded with no economic restrictions. In a virtual world, the teacher can monitor the interactions and transactions between businesses and change the cost of inputs to recreate reflections of a real environment.

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.

At the University of Technology, Sydney, Professor Hung Nguyen and his research team are developing a system operates a wheelchair with nothing but brain waves. The tech can be revolutionary for people with severe disabilities. It earned position No. 3 in this year's Anthill SMART 100.

We saw the cost of energy rising, the growing frequency of major destructive climate events, the crazy behaviour of office staff wasting electricity by leaving things on overnight and on weekends (74% of the week), the overly complex solutions available....

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.

In 2009, we decided to find out what was happening inside Australian small businesses that was holding them up from getting online and participating in the digital economy. Our research showed us that for the majority of SMEs, getting a website was all too hard... too technical, too expensive and too time-consuming. We decided to change all that.

I became fascinated by Khao Larm when living in Taiwan. I wanted to try my own recipes in it, but never saw it being prepared. Moving to Thailand, I am fortunate to have a neighbour, a lovely old lady we call Yai Yu (Aunty Yu), who prepares Khao Larm by the traditional method. Having observed Yai Yu making Khao Larm by the traditional method for some years, I wanted to use my industrial design and ethnotechnology studies to solve some of the apparent problems.

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.

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.

One night I called all the kids for dinner and asked them to bring the cups they were using to the table. They all walked past several cups on the kitchen counter and grabbed a new one from the cupboard. Right then I wished I had a better way to manage all the cups floating around our house. Keeping track of cups in a busy family can sometimes become unmanageable resulting in abandoned cups, spreading of illness and arguments.

We realised that simply providing content to a market online was not enough. We discovered that we also needed to help our customers organise, access and use the content in the easiest way possible. The purpose of this innovation is to provide nurses and allied health staff around central and rural Australia with a comprehensive online platform for them to complete and manage their Continued Professional Development (CPD) activities.

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.

This innovation initially came to life when it was realised that the popularity and hype surrounding mobile apps was not going to be the answer to an organisation's need to service the entire range of future challenges it will face around 'mobility'. Organisations will need a much more strategic approach (and the tools that support such an approach) to deliver useful mobile tools to a range of different users -- staff, customers and business partners.

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.

Gretha Oost has the heart of an environmentalist and the mind of a marketer. She pondered Australians' propensity to drink water from bottles when, by and large, water from their taps are perfectly safe. Her solution earned top honors in Anthill's SMART 100 for 2011.

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.

David Scholes, a noted Real Estate auctioneer, and myself [Brian Edmonds] decided it was time to take one of the world's oldest professions and introduce it to the digital age. We wanted to use the opportunity to create a better way of buying and selling property, one that is transparent and less stressful than the normal auction process.

It came to life when we discovered how hard it is to keep a house tidy enough to be presentable at its best for a Home Open when we were selling it. We also noticed that many of the photos did not give a good impression of our home, its layout or feel. Home Open TV is a user-enabled site that allows anyone to list their own home free ... with video and a unique video email solution.

We were working closely with one of our clients, a locksmith, who was having difficulty managing the day-to-day activities involved in a do-and-charge business: providing quotes, booking jobs, using staff effectively, and remembering to invoice. We saw that the issues with our client were not locksmith issues, but issues almost every small business faces. We knew that through the power of the iPhone and a clever web app, we would completely change how small business operated. ServiceM8 was born.

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.