Dynamic Business wishes to congratulate the start-ups, SMEs and entrepreneurs whose disruptive technology solutions wowed judges, including Steve Wozniak, at the grand final event of the 2016 Talent Unleashed Awards, held in Sydney last night.
The global technology event – an initiative of IT recruitment agency, Talent International – saw five entrants from the Asia Pacific region go head-to-head with five from the UK and Europe in a live pitching contest in front of a crowd of 250 people.
Winning entrants
The winners in each of the five categories were determined by a distinguished international panel, which included Steve Wozniak (co-founder, Apple), Jane Tewson (co-founder, Comic Relief and Igniting Change) and serial entrepreneur Yat Siu.
The five winners were:
- Best Start Up, Social Impact – ODOCS Eye Care (Auckland, New Zealand)
- Best Start-Up, Tech Innovation – CleverTar (Adelaide, Australia)
- Best Digital SME, Tech Innovation – TherapyBox (London, England)
- Best Tech IPO / Venture Capital Raising – ResAPP (Perth, Australia)
- Most Disruptive CIO / CTO – Neal Cross, CIO of DBS (Singapore)
As part of their prize, the five global winners will travel to Silicon Valley for an exclusive tour of some of the world’s leading technology companies and receive individual time with Steve Wozniak to be guided on their innovation journey.
“Our start-up sector is malnourished”
Speaking at the ceremony, Founder and Executive Chairman of Talent, Richard Earl said that more needed to be done to promote the start-up sector in Australia.
“The Australian start-up sector is malnourished, the result of a generation of politicians and the private sector focusing on their personal agendas,” he said.
“The greatest technology capitals of the world – London, Silicon Valley, Berlin and Tel Aviv – have one thing in common, an ecosystem of supporting infrastructure and talent required to support and grow the technology sector,” he said.
“Here in Sydney, and Australia more broadly, we have one half of this equation – a lucky country which offers one of the best lifestyles in the world.
“What we’re missing is a concerted effort by government to bring together the ecosystem into one location. But it’s also up to the private sector to provide support.
“As the [entrants] have demonstrated repeatedly, great ideas are nothing without great people to build and execute them.”
“I love to follow good ideas”
Mr Wozniak reflected on the passion for innovation which has driven his continued involvement in the Talent Unleashed Awards over the past three years.
“I decided to judge these awards because innovation is so key in my life, especially young people who are humble and just have an idea, and they have ideas more than they’ve ever had any big wealth or success in their life – their ideas are really good,” he said.
“I love to follow good ideas – I’m more interested in interesting people and interesting things, than people with power and wealth.
“Entrepreneurs who are told ‘what you’re doing is good, we notice it, we’re even going to give you awards for it,’ they think, ‘oh my gosh, I want to keep doing good things, it’s positive feedback’.”
