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2019 AIIA National iAwards propels Australian digital innovation towards global recognition

Announcement posted by Filtered Media | telling your story, brilliantly 30 Aug 2019

Melbourne, Australia – 30 August 2019 -- The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), the nation’s peak industry body for the technology sector, last night announced the prestigious National iAwards winners for 2019. The AIIA’s iAwards has been Australia’s leading awards and recognition program for more than a quarter of a century, bringing homegrown innovations to the world stage.
 
From Galaxy Australia’s free, Web-accessible platform that enables genetic scientists across the globe to test, evaluate and peer review their work – making the next cure for chronic disease within reach of anyone with the dedication and skills to look for it – to Emergency Kid, an app designed by four Year 9 students at Murray Bridge High School that educates, and helps children who find themselves in emergencies, the innovations from 2019 have shone.
 
At the core of the program which engages with all sectors of the economy, are the digital leaders that are disrupting and transforming the markets they target, generating tangible end-customer outcomes.
 
Over a six month period, entrants from ACT, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia have competed for the state titles. Winners from each state and territory then came head to head for the national title in their respective categories.

The award categories included Business Service Markets, Community Service Markets, Consumer Markets, Industrial & Primary Industries, Infrastructure & Platforms, Students, Research & Development Project, Public Sector & Government, Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning, Big Data, Startup, Innovation of the Year and the Victoria State Government Inspiration of the Year which comes with a $10,000 business incentive.
 
At the final gala event held last night at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, The Hon. Martin Pakula, Minister for Racing, Minister for Jobs, Innovation and Trade and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, presented INWENTECH with the Victoria State Government Inspiration of the Year Award for their entry ChestPhan-4D: A Dynamic Phantom to Fight Cancer.
 
“It’s fantastic that the national iAwards have once again been hosted by Melbourne – Australia’s tech city and an increasingly important tech hub in the Asia-Pacific,” said Minister Pakula.
 
“This event is a celebration of the talented entrepreneurs, technologists and innovators excelling in their field from across Australia.”
 
AIIA CEO, Ron Gauci, said the innovation showcased by the 2019 finalists builds not only on the incredible outcomes of the 2018 iAwards, but boasts historical success from the likes of Google Maps, Atlassian, Wotif and WiseTech Global.
 
“For 26 years, the iAwards has recognised and celebrated the achievements of those Australian businesses, individuals and students that are conceptualising and developing leading Australian digital innovations.
 
“Each year, the iAwards program elevates the many Australian innovators who think beyond the norm, can see beyond the horizon and who can bring ideas to life. As a nation, we ‘punch well above our weight’ globally when it comes to innovation, technology, our people and our industries.
 
"AIIA would like to congratulate the winners and merit recipients of the 2019 National iAwards and sincerely thank them for their creative and tireless efforts to improve our lives and workplaces. We continue to be inspired by Australian innovators, whether they're in startups, the public sector, community services, primary school, academia, or private enterprise.
 
“We’d like to further encourage Australians to consider the outstanding marketing, customer and partner engagement platform for 2020 that the iAwards is and the incredible strategic access to C-level executives that the program offers,” he said.
 
NATIONAL IAWARDS WINNERS AND MERIT RECIPIENTS
 
Business Service Markets
  • Neighbourlytics – Social Analytics for Neighbourhoods (winner)
  • Resident Manager – Telstra Health (merit)
  • Felix – Felix Softward (merit) 
Community Service Markets
  • Noisy Guts – The University of Western Australia (winner)
  • Digital Treatment for Tinnitus Sufferers – Valetud T/A Tinnitus Treatment & Pernix (merit)
  • 1800RESPECT Sunny – Medibank Health Solutions (merit) 
Consumer Markets
  • The Wiggles: Fun Time with Faces – Weyo & Two Bulls (winner) 
Industrial & Primary Industries
  • ChestPhan-4D: A Dynamic Phantom to Fight Cancer – INWENTECH (winner)
  • WearSense – Davies Wear Plate Systems (merit)
  • Autonomous Offshore Aquaculture Feeding System – Huon Aquaculture Group (merit) 
Senior Students
  • Collective Care – Seton College (winner)
  • Buddi – Dianella Secondary College (merit)
Junior Students
  • Talk to the Hand – My Buckets Full – Munday Family Home School (winner)
  • NextVax – Sacred Heart College (merit)
  • Emergency KID – Murray Bridge High School (merit)
Undergraduate Tertiary Students
  • A preliminary program to visualise and manipulate OCT and Histology scans – Curtin University/Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research (winner)
  • vloConnect – The University of Sydney (merit)
Research & Development Project of the Year
  • DeloitteASSIST – Deloitte (winner)
  • Noisy Guts – The University of Western Australia (merit)
  • Pain ROADMAP – MNHHS, CSIRO & UQ (merit)
Public Sector & Government
  • Smart Trade Mark – IP Australia & Agile Digital (winner)
  • Building The Construction Site and The Hive – Level Crossing Removal Authority (merit) 
Automation Technologies Innovation of the Year
  • Autonomous Offshore Aquaculture Feeding System – Huon Aquaculture Group (winner)
  • Spectrum-Scan LiDAR – Baraja (merit)
Data Insights Innovation of the Year
  • H2OME – Water Corporation & Optika Solutions (winner)
  • Basin Futures – CSIRO's Data61 & Land and Water (merit)
  • Pain ROADMAP – MNHHS, CSIRO & UQ (merit)
Startup of the Year
  • FLAIM Trainer – FLAIM Systems (winner)
  • udrew Pty Ltd – udrew Pty Ltd (merit)
  • Sports Apparel Sponsorships Platform – Sportility (merit)
Victoria State Government Inspiration of the Year
  • ChestPhan-4D: A Dynamic Phantom to Fight Cancer – INWENTECH (winner)
The 2019 iAwards is proudly supported by National iAwards Program Partner and Inspiration iAward Sponsor Victoria State Government, National Program Sponsors AuDA, NBN Co and The University of Queensland, Platinum Table Sponsors Cisco and UTS, and Student Travel Supports Huski.
 
2019 PITCHFEST: Shining a light on innovation
 
AIIA’s 2019 PitchFest and Innovation Showcase, sponsored by CSIRO and Data61, and hosted by KPMG, continues to be an exciting feature event in AIIA’s iAwards program. Prior to the iAwards ceremony it provided a day-long opportunity for the community to hear from a range of this year's finalists, as they pitch their innovations to our esteemed panel and live audience.
 
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
 
Descriptions of winner and merit recipient projects:
 
1800RESPECT Sunny – Medibank Health Solutions
Sunny is a voice of encouragement that helps users to recognise violence and abuse, understand their rights, and explore options for support. Sunny specifically aims to empower women with intellectual disabilities who are at risk or have experienced violence or abuse.
                                   
A preliminary program to visualise and manipulate OCT and Histology scans – Curtin University/Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research
This project transformed a laborious system which required extensive hard-coding and a knowledge of MATLAB, to a user friendly program which allows researchers to examine entire volumes of Optical Coherence Tomography scans. This includes many analytic tools such as applying an elasticity overlay which highlights properties such as tumours.
 
Autonomous Offshore Aquaculture Feeding System – Huon Aquaculture Group
Huon Aquaculture has developed and deployed an innovative fish feeding system that uses a combination of industrial automation and artificial intelligence to autonomously control feed rates in offshore fish farms by identifying and tracking feed pellets within the water column using machine vision and machine learning.
    
Basin Futures – CSIRO's Data61 & Land and Water
Basin Futures makes basin water planning accessible anywhere in the world by significantly reducing barriers to entry. It allows users to assess changes in water resources under future scenarios (for example, climate change, changes in irrigation, hydro and industry) using global data and cloud-based simulation, delivered through a dynamic web application.       
                                   
Building The Construction Site and The Hive – Level Crossing Removal Authority
The Level Crossing Removal Authority created a platform in our $18b construction program to bring IoT to construction sites and the construction industry, and to leave a legacy of smarter, connected infrastructure in our wake – from trains to cities. Our world-first Connected Construction Site is forecast to produce millions in savings.
                                               
ChestPhan-4D: A Dynamic Phantom to Fight Cancer – INWENTECH
INWENTECH invented an award-winning medical device, ChestPhan-4D, which improves radiotherapy imaging and treatment of lung/liver/breast cancers for better tumor targeting and location movement induced by the patient's respiration. Patented worldwide and having entered the European Union market, this product will revolutionise the radiotherapy quality assurance practice and benefit many patients by improving treatment outcome.
                                               
DeloitteASSIST – Deloitte
Even in modern hospitals, the primary method through which a patient can request assistance from a nurse is a button and a bell that cannot distinguish between patient needs or provide reassurance. In a world first, Deloitte have deployed an artificial intelligence enabled patient communication solution, DeloitteASSIST.
                                               
Digital Treatment for Tinnitus Sufferers – Valetud T/A Tinnitus Treatment & Pernix
Targeting affordable, accessible treatment for 20% of the population suffering from tinnitus. A digital platform designed and recommended by an ear, nose and throat specialist doctor. Delivering a customised narrowband sound via an individual’s mobile device, which teaches the brain to ignore tinnitus thereby reducing its impact, resulting in better quality of life.
 
Emergency KID – Murray Bridge High School
Emergency KID, the safety application by kids for kids. Emergency KID is an innovative mobile app designed to educate, and help children who find themselves in emergencies such as dealing with injuries or contacting emergency services. The app is colourful yet simple, to be engaging to its target audience, kids.                                           
 
Felix – Felix Softward
Felix is a cloud-based, modular procurement platform that makes it easy for organisations of all sizes to automate and centralise vendor relationship management and source-to-contract (S2C) activities. Teams use Felix to drive time and cost savings while building better, compliant relationships between procurement, project delivery and vendors.                                     
 
FLAIM Trainer – FLAIM Systems
FLAIM Trainer is a virtual reality training system for firefighters and first responders that provides an immersive training experience across a wide range of scenarios. It allows firefighters to train in safe situations, without harming the environment, inexpensively and locally. Better skills training and wider experiences for safer communities.                                  
 
H2OME – Water Corporation & Optika Solutions
Water Corporation is transforming the way it thinks about urban water use in response to climate change and population growth challenges. H2OME incorporates the technology, data and approach to determine how much water Perth should be using to preserve the liveability, amenity and quality of life of the community. 
                                               
Neighbourlytics – Social Analytics for Neighbourhoods
Neighbourlytics is a social analytics platform for neighbourhoods, pioneering the use of social data in cities. Our proprietary technology measures the social life of neighbourhoods in near real-time, providing city makers and social impact organisations with groundbreaking insights into how well communities are thriving.           
                                   
Noisy Guts – The University of Western Australia
**Noisy Guts** is dedicated to unlocking the secret language to diagnose and monitor common gut disorders. Our acoustic belt has multiple sensors that listen, record and analyse gut noises. We use artificial intelligence, signal processing and machine learning to correlate rumbling and grumbling gut noises to specific gut conditions.                                                       
                                               
Pain ROADMAP – MNHHS, CSIRO & UQ
Pain ROADMAP is a novel mobile health platform that allows clinicians to easily identify what activities have contributed to a severe pain aggravation for an individual with chronic pain. The platform incorporates a commercially available activity monitor, a custom-made mobile phone app, and an online data integration and analysis portal.      
                                               
Resident Manager – Telstra Health
Telstra Health’s Resident Manager software helps residential aged care providers manage their resident administration, Medicare claiming, and reporting processes. The solution helps to create efficiencies, easily manage resident admission and leave, and minimise Medicare rejections caused by inaccurate data. A finance integration helps streamline resident billing, payment and reporting.
                                               
Smart Trade Mark – IP Australia & Agile Digital
The Smart Trade Mark initiative supports Australian trade mark owners with digital protection against counterfeiting in global marketplaces. A Smart Trade Mark is a blockchain-backed digital fingerprint for trade mark owners to prove their product's Australian origin. It gives global consumers surety in the authenticity and provenance of Australian exports.                                                          
Spectrum-Scan LiDAR – Baraja
LiDAR is a key sensor for self-driving vehicles, but is responsible for the 'science experiment' look of most autonomous cars on the road today. Baraja's innovative Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR improves on every aspect of incumbent sensors, resulting in a high-performance, high-reliability system that can be realistically integrated in a vehicle.
                                               
Sports Apparel Sponsorships Platform – Sportility
Sportility is a platform that is levelling the playing field in sports sponsorship by connecting brands to amateur teams, granting them access to affordable, professional gear. Teams simply log on to Sportility, design their custom gear and add participating sponsor logos to reduce their costs by up to 40%. 
                                   
Talk to the Hand - My Buckets Full – Munday Family Home School
Talk to the Hand – My Bucket’s Full is an app for people with sensory processing disorder. Designed to help people feel calm and regulated, it includes: Sensory Wake-Up, to alert the senses; Sensory Pit-Stop, to refocus; My Bucket, sense specific activities to help empty your bucket; and other sensory activities          
    
The Wiggles: Fun Time with Faces – Weyo & Two Bulls
The Wiggles: Fun Time with Faces app innovates storytelling by allowing children to dive into the narrative using interactive video and augmented reality. With fun AR face masks, children can become characters, sing songs, play along to The Wiggles videos, and even star in their own interactive story!        
              
udrew Pty Ltd – udrew Pty Ltd
udrew is a design and engineering platform empowering business & homeowners with the ability to design, engineer and manage their own custom-building project for 70% less cost, with automated Local Government submission and instant approval. This allows project owners to begin construction in minutes – not months.
                                               
vloConnect – The University of Sydney
vloConnect enables early diagnostic and monitoring of lymphoedema for potential patients, streamlines the diagnostic process, and greatly reduces the waiting time for each appointment for existing patients by enabling remote diagnostics at the patients home.
                                               
WearSense ­– Davies Wear Plate Systems
Wear liners are sacrificial plates used to protect ore handling equipment from abrasion due to material flow. WearSense® is an IoT sensor fitted into wear liners that provides real-time condition monitoring, transforming asset maintenance strategies. WearSense facilitates a transition to Condition Based Maintenance, where maintenance is only undertaken when required                                                     


                                                            -ENDS-

About the AIIA’s iAwards
AIIA’s iAwards honours both companies at the cutting edge of technology innovation as well as leading professionals across the  Economy. Most importantly, the iAwards recognises the achievements of home-grown Australian innovators. http://www.iawards.com.au/
 
Join the conversation
AIIA’s iAwards get people talking about  Innovation. Take advantage of the buzz by joining the conversation on Twitter with #iAwards, liking iAwards on Facebook and staying in touch with LinkedIn.
 
About the AIIA
The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) is Australia’s peak representative body and advocacy group for those in the  ecosystem. Since 1978, AIIA has pursued activities to stimulate and grow the  ecosystem, to create a favourable business environment for members and to contribute to Australia’s economic prosperity. AIIA does this by delivering outstanding member value by providing a strong voice of influence; building a sense of community through events and education; enabling a network for collaboration and inspiration; and developing compelling content and relevant and interesting information.
 
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Tel: (02) 8188 3616
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