Techies compete for NSW's $150k prize
The annual Tech23 competition has rolled around again this year, bringing together some of Australia's best young ICT businesses.
The event's 23 contestants were announced yesterday, which will all be competing for over $150,000 of funding. Each of the companies will be given just five minutes to deliver the ultimate elevator pitch to a panel of industry leaders.
Judging this year's entries are a host of prestigious industry leaders, including Google Maps inventor Lars Rasmussen, who recently left Sydney, and who also invented the Google Wave project for Facebook. Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes, and Seek co-founder Matt Rockman, are also amongst the judges.
This will be the third year that Tech23 has run. Last year, Marathon Robotics took out the top Innovation Excellence Award prize, going on to expand its Sydney facilities and roll out its autonomous moving target robots on US live-fire ranges. Building IQ took out the Greatest Potential award for its energy-management software that forecasts building energy requirements. Its CEO Mike Zimmerman said that the funding provided the company with greater visibility in the tech community, motivated his staff and provided them with the much-needed funding for a reporting system for its customers.
The companies in this year's top 23 have a range of specialties, from early weather warning to augmented reality platforms and human location solutions.
Of the 150 companies that applied, the following 23 have been selected to compete:
- Agworld
- Bugherd
- buildAR
- Centryc Solutions
- Cinergix
- Effective Measure International
- Filter Squad
- Friendorse
- goCatch
- Hyperlocalizer
- iAsset
- InterfereX
- Kaggle
- Momentum Cloud Technologies
- Navisens
- Orion Virtualisation Solutions
- Roamz
- Specialist Link
- StageBitz
- The Early Warning Network
- Thereitis.com
- vtalk Holdings
- ZeroMail
Tech23 will take place in Sydney on 23 August.