Innovation lives here: Meet the digital pioneers blazing a trail in WA tech

Western Australia’s thriving ICT community will celebrate 31 years of local technology and innovation when the annual INCITE Awards return to The Westin Perth on Friday, August 12, 2022.

Twenty-seven WA-based companies, organisations and education institutions will be showcased as they compete for the top gongs in categories including Innovating Government, Social Impact, Startup of the Year, Transformative Business Solution and Research & Innovation.

Led by organiser the Western Australian Information Technology and Telecommunications Alliance (WAITTA), the Awards are the state’s premier ICT event and have been putting WA tech on the map since 1991.
WAITTA President, Colin Janssen, said, “From climate change and mental health to urban farming and regional healthcare, the diversity and genius of our entrants' thinking and the challenges they tackle continue to exceed our expectations year after year.

We may be a small population, but the strength of this year’s cohort demonstrates that the ideas coming out of Perth are worthy of anything coming out of Sydney or Silicon Valley.

We couldn’t be prouder to shine a light on the achievements of our state’s brilliant local innovators and to share just how much WA is punching above its weight on August 12.”

Hosted by MC Gerry Gannon, this year’s gala guests will enjoy a delicious three course dinner menu and live entertainment from Fluid Groove the Band, hear insights on the state of WA innovation from Minister Stephen Dawson and Councillor Rebecca Gordon, and of course, celebrate all of the evening’s big winners.

For this year’s category and merit winners the accolades won’t stop there, with the Awards presenting a pathway to the national iAwards, the Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) and more.

Tickets to the 31st INCITE Awards are available now at https://events.humanitix.com/2022-incite-awards.

The 31st INCITE Awards Finalists are: 

Innovating Government

●      Horizon Power for their Renewable Energy System Application (RESA) & Grid Planning Portal (GPP) – improving renewable energy connections through new, human centred design and tech to deliver more affordable, cleaner energy for Western Australians.

●      Department of Education Western Australia, Marble Bar Primary School for Marble Bar Virtual Worlds – a collaboration with Elders and Airborne IT at Marble Bar Primary School to create a first of its kind virtual reality gallery showcasing Nyamal Culture to local and international audiences.

●      WA Country Health Service for BACKUP (By Assisting Clinical Knowledge & Upskilling Practice) – connecting clinical experts with graduate nurses in WA’s regional healthcare facilities to deliver remote, virtual support for new nurses.

Social Impact

●      ClimateClever – the first free, community-scale carbon reduction platform to help businesses, schools and individuals accurately measure and genuinely reduce their carbon footprint.

●      ECU for the Sideffect Gameplan – a freely available, online, student-centred, curriculum-informed harm minimisation education resource designed to increase young people’s ability to make safe decisions in relation to alcohol and other drugs.

●      Indigo for their National Equipment Database – Australia’s leading custom-built information and ecommerce marketplace for assistive technology and equipment.

●      Oqea – the first person-centric digital marketplace and collaborative workspace that connects users with healthcare providers, businesses, and family and friends in one safe and secure location, improving access and immediacy of availability to support and empowering individuals to take ownership of their wellbeing.

●      Neurotologix for their innovative, low-cost IoT device called ROMI, a remote patient monitoring system with proven potential to revolutionise how dizziness and vertigo are diagnosed – the first solution in the market to address a worldwide clinical need for assessing these episodic conditions.

Startup of the Year

●      Assuro – a world first digital platform born to simplify bank guarantees for businesses around the globe by making obtaining one simple, fast and low cost.

●      Aussie Holiday Stays – an online booking platform with heart for Australian holiday accommodation, helping guests create lifelong memories while promoting sustainable tourism and encouraging engagement with local communities.

●      Gridcognition – an energy tech startup on an environmental mission to accelerate the transition to a decentralised and decarbonised energy future through an ‘out of the box’ energy project modelling software.

●      Ziksu Capital – a fast, easy, and secure QR code based, digital transaction account available for free download that allows its users to onboard and transact in under three minutes.

Transformative Business Solutions

●      Aqura Technologies – a leading provider of next-generation fixed and industrial wireless networks responding to the demands of Industry 4.0 with industrial networks designed, engineered, and delivered by an in-house WA team. 

●      Assuro – a world first digital platform born to simplify bank guarantees for businesses around the globe by making obtaining one simple, fast and low cost.

●      BHP for Dash Tools by BHP – eliminating fatality risks from heavy mining equipment by putting sensors in harm’s way, not people, Dash is a modern Industrial Internet of Things Platform developed in collaboration with the Australian METS sector and manufactured in WA.

●      Cirrus8, the only Australian-owned and based cloud solution in the specialist commercial property accounting space.

●      DUG for their cost-effective, green, cloud-based High-Performance Computing as a Service (HPCaaS), backed by bespoke support for technology onboarding to help organisations unlock valuable insights from their wealth of data to turbocharge scientific and business applications.

●      Oqea – the first person-centric digital marketplace and collaborative workspace that connects users with healthcare providers, businesses, and family and friends in one safe and secure location, improving access and immediacy of availability to support and empowering individuals to take ownership of their wellbeing.

●      Pentanet neXus, a gigabit-enabled network delivering extremely fast and reliable internet connections that are quick to deploy and significantly more accessible than traditional networks – the future of internet connectivity in Perth.

Peter Fillery Undergraduate Tertiary Student Project of the Year 

●      Curtin University: Evaluating the Usability of Social Robot for use in Teaching Emotion Recognition with Children in Autism Therapy – enabling neurodiverse children to better understand and express their emotions through the innovative use of robotics, namely, a robot named JD.

●      Curtin University: Ride with Me – an innovative social cycling platform that makes it easy for cyclists to plan, organise and discover group rides in one application.

●      Deloitte & Curtin University: Optimisation Using Quantum Computers – a quantum computing interface which solves business optimisation problems by minimising the total timespan of complex project schedules.

Research & Innovation Project of the Year

●      ECU: the Sideffect Gameplan – a freely available, online, student-centred, curriculum-informed harm minimisation education resource designed to increase young people’s ability to make safe decisions in relation to alcohol and other drugs.

●      UWA: GAMES – a Green Asset Management and Evaluation System that supports the efficient and effective evaluation and management of natural and managed green assets that provide multiple environmental, economic, and social benefits.

Research & Innovation Project of the Year (Postgraduate Tertiary Student Projects only)

●      ECU: Smart Urban Vertical Farming – a precise, reliable horticulture methodology that combines simple computer-based software with low-cost hardware to achieve high yields in small, compact spaces using minimal energy.

●      UWA: High Definition LiDAR 3D mapping of Perth CBD – a scalable 3D-HD-mapper designed to create high definition point-cloud maps for large urban regions utilising the latest advances in 3D computer vision research.

●      UWA: Smart beehive monitoring system for remote regions – a monitoring system that utilises the latest in long range technologies for communication and machine learning to eliminate the expensive components of monitoring honeybees to maintain healthy beehives.