Smart 100 2012

Proving that smart, solid ideas can more than hold their own against flashy ones, BuildingIQ takes home the third spot overall in the 2012 SMART 100 for an innovation with immense relevance: a management system for optimising energy consumption in commercial spaces. The BuildingIQ EMS, which grew into fruition through years of research at CSIRO, takes care of two important elements of energy management at once. First, it supplements the standard building management system by monitoring energy usage based on weather and room temperature. Second, it adjusts these settings as necessary to strike a balance between efficient consumption and human comfort.

This one is for the backpacker in all of us. That sun-kissed specimen who treads lightly on the surface of the globe, travelling with little luggage and luxury... albeit often at the expense of personal hygiene. Ashley Newland faced the usual dilemma before undertaking a climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro. He came up with a solution that would allow for effective laundry washing while on the road. Behold the Scrubba Wash Bag -- an innovation whose design, efficiency and progressive vision have earned it this year's highest honour in the Anthill SMART 100.

We got sick of having to charge our clients for fixing work that was already paid for and having to justify our fees to our clients for this work. The majority of bookkeepers weren't qualified and hence did not understand accounting and yet charged high rates based on experience. We realised we could offer the same services with better qualified staff at lower rates by moving accounting functions offshore.

One average 24-year-old man from the western suburbs of Melbourne was moving to a new home and given the challenge of refurnishing his parents' entire home with a small budget of $5,000. At the time he was living at home with his parents and was sick and tired of coming home to uncoordinated colours and uncoordinated pieces of furniture. He took this opportunity from his parents and was determined to have designer pieces of furniture at an affordable price but found nothing. Interior Secrets was born.

The group saw tremendous and untapped potential in enhancing the real estate search experience. With the sprouting growth of iPad users, the group embarked on developing an app that gives property buyers a new platform to search for properties with greater ease.

I was tutoring HSC maths students and found they were encountering the same problems I had encountered when I was studying for my HSC maths exams -- namely, that there was not a comprehensive online resource for students to refer to for help with HSC maths. The existing online HSC maths resources just felt like electronic textbooks rather than providing anything different from what students already had in their textbooks.

Developed through years of scientific research at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), BuildingIQ is the only scientifically-proven predictive modeling tool for intelligently controlling commercial building energy consumption with virtually no start-up costs for the consumer.

Following my 23 years in graphic design and illustration, I was searching for something new but not alien to my background. An interior designer friend suggested I study at her school to learn interior decorating and thus create artworks for designers based upon the rules of interior design. I did this and later the colour psychology course and from this I started the business.

I came to realisation that not all recruitment agencies needed to be the same. There was in fact a demand for very responsive and customer-focused recruiters to provide an open-book service. We place a high emphasis on quality and service standards. We employ only the best, most eager young professionals and set the standards for their account management. Our managers remain hands on and lean by example.

I heard of the devastation caused by the 2010 Haiti earthquake. I realised that I had the skills and opportunity to make a positive difference in similar future catastrophes and set about creating a telecommunications system that could operate without relying on large, expensive and easily damaged infrastructure. My vision has attracted a talented, passionate and dedicated team, who are now turning it into reality.

I was looking for an unusual promotional item to sell at a pet and animal expo. While watching Man vs. Wild I suddenly had some inspiration: what if I could make eating bugs not as gross! So I took something really unfamiliar (the bugs) and put them in products that people love to eat. The products were so popular we decided to make them part of our regular range.

in2loyalty initially came to life when I was at my local fruit grocer and they offered me a paper stamp loyalty card. Every week I shop there and as I don't carry a purse or wallet, every week I would forget my card and miss out on getting the rewards. As I always have my phone on me, I thought, wouldn't it be great if the stamp card was on my phone? Then I would never forget it, and would always receive the rewards.

Over a period of some 10 years, I wrote sales copy for product vendors. I saw that most vendors require professional quality copy, but don't have the budget for it. Instead, they write it themselves or don't use copy at all. In late 2010, I came up with an idea for automating the creation of property descriptions for real estate agents and vehicle sales copy for car dealers.

Tripping through Europe, I came across the growing economics of "collaborative consumption" and an article in Time magazine about returned US servicemen and women from Iraq and Afghanistan. At the time I was busy writing about video game mechanics and their application to leading Gen Y and Digital Natives. Suddenly I had three solid schools of thought that, when married together, formed a very relevant, practical and easy model for leading upcoming generations.

Brad realised there was no way to buy anything directly off of TV without requiring an app download or anything similar, so he set out to create BuyReply which would enable merchants to sell products across any broadcast medium without needing an app. Five months later, our team is four weeks away from launching a world-first, patent-pending platform that enables this.

We all have a passion for giving something back to the community. We wondered if there was some way that we could combine our charity work with business. As a result the concept of Karma Contacts was born. We believe that people should be able to change the world simply through their daily purchases of everyday items like contact lenses.

Co-founders Andrew Dowling and Jay Teborek met while studying in Beijing. There, in an engagement with advisors to the Chinese government on macroeconomic policy, they came face to face with what is the biggest demographic trend in human history, one that will transform industries, governments and societies over the coming decades: the ageing population.

We looked at the coupon systems used by companies such as Groupon that are bad for customers as they risk not being able to redeem an offer that has been fully paid for, and also bad for merchants as they do not get paid for unredeemed coupons which are kept by the group-buying site. We have removed the risk from both parties while keeping a revenue stream from the website.

We saw that government was responding to social media risks by shutting down and adding bureaucratic approval processes that destroy the conversational spirit of services like Twitter. When we heard they had a Twitter committee that would meet once a week to approve tweets we knew we had to do something. Our idea was to add a simple time delay to social media updates, just like a live TV broadcast.

The purpose of this innovation is to publish a magazine rich in useful advice from real wedding vendors with real experience to help plan real weddings. It is also easily accessible as it's an e-mag and completely free for the reader.