Following Australian Startups and Tech Trends

Today we showcase an exciting and pioneering technology startup from Australia, Emotiv Systems - Control Gameplay With Your Thoughts, Expressions & Emotions. It is co-founded by Nam Do, Professor Allan Snyder, Dr. Neil Weste and Tan Le, president of Emotiv Systems . I recently did an email based interview with president Tan Le on the progress of their venture. This is what she has to say: - Please tell us about yourself, your background and your interests? Before joining Emotiv, I, along with Emotiv Systems CEO, Nam Do, co-founded and ran SASme, a pioneer in providing SMPP platforms and one of the companies responsible for the creation of Australia's SMS application market. I’ve also worked with one of Australia's leading law firms, Freehills. In 1998, I was named Young Australian of the Year and voted one of Australia's 30 Most Successful Women Under 30. I graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws (with Honors) from Monash University. I also was a

Today we showcase an exciting and interesting startup from Melbourne, Australia, 2Vouch - a social recruiting site that helps employers and recruiters find hard-to-reach people. It was founded by Riges Younan. I further explored 2Vouch and how Riges is progressing with his venture in a candid interview with him. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I am currently the founder and CEO of 2Vouch a Social Recruiting site. I have over 12 years of professional executive search and recruiting experience gained in Sydney, Melbourne, London and New York. I have been responsible for the successful launch of five start-up recruiting offices for various firms as well as the development and deployment of sophisticated sourcing techniques & processes that lead to superior results for clients. I bring deep industry knowledge and extensive sales, marketing and management experience to 2Vouch. • What is the name of your venture/company? 2Vouch

In our ongoing coverage of startups coming out of Australia and interviews with CEOs, Media Personalities, Philanthropists, and VCs, today we showcase an exciting venture and story of an entrepreneur from the building industry, Malcolm Lambert founder of Intresto - Software for Intelligent Rearrangement of Stones I did an email-based interview with Malcolm to explore his thoughts on the progress of his venture and new emerging trends. This is what he has to say: • What is the name of your venture/company? Intresto Pty Ltd. The name is derived from “intelligent rearrangement of stone”, something people have been doing for thousands of years but only now do we have the computing power and computer science techniques to allow software to take over the difficult part of the procedure which is the 3d geometric shape fitting of irregular objects. • Please tell us about your venture/company? A self-funded tech start-up company developing software for use in the construction industry. • Who

In our ongoing coverage of startups coming out of Australia and interviews with CEOs, Media Personalities, Philanthropists, and VCs, today we showcase a successful venture and an exciting entrepreneur Ben Barren, co-founder of Gnoos - Australia's Largest Blog Search Engine for Consumers and Enterprises. I recently met Ben through our common friend Duncan Riley. I was highly impressed by his breadth of knowledge and enthusiasm. I followed up with him to do an email-based interview with me to explore his thoughts on the progress of his various ventures and new emerging trends. This is what he has to say: • What is the name of your company, the people involved, and can you provide some background on the venture? Red Lion Ventures Pty Ltd owns Feedcorp Pty Ltd and Gnoos Pty Ltd . Red Lion Ventures was co-founded by Michael Leone and Ben Barren. The business has doubled revenue in the last 3 quarters so we’re hitting a real growth spurt. In early 2005 Michael and I believed there wa

Today we showcase an exciting and interesting startup, in the online business directory search market segment, from Sydney Australia, FreeConnect - An online business directory search with multichannel capability, including VOIP. It was started by John Kennedy and was launched on May 28, 2008. In my view,  FreeConnect is definitely a unique service in the Australian business directories market segment as compared to other players . It has the huge potential to change market forces. It offers consumers a free way to connect with the business of their choice via (multichannel) telephone, email, SMS and VOIP. It is also Australia’s first-ever VOIP online directory service. It allows businesses to post a wide array of information - everything from their address and contact details to product and service information, photographs, payment options, business history and more – all at no cost. The only payment businesses make is for the actual lead when it connects them with a customer looki

In our ongoing coverage of startups coming out of Australia and interviews with CEOs, Media Personalities, Philanthropists, and VCs, today we showcase a startup in the eCommerce segment from Manly, Tjoos.com - Compare Prices For Better Choice While Shopping. It is co-founded by Kim Chen and Bart Jellema. Let us explore how Bart, co-founder of Tjoos.com , is progressing with his venture. This is what he has to say: • Who are the people behind this and how it started? Back in July 2007 my partner and I were looking to purchase contact lenses online. Having done comparison shopping a few times I expected it to be easy to find the lowest price using one of the price comparison sites. We spent all day looking at every comparison site we could find and got some upsetting results. Shopping comparison engines rarely list the lowest price, and if they do it's merely a coincidence. Shopping comparison sites only list stores that pay them, making most sites nothing more than PPC product se

In our ongoing coverage of startups coming out of Australia and interviews with CEOs, Media Personalities, Philanthropists, and VCs, today we showcase a startup from Melbourne, Australia, to be launched in October, 2008, Trickytix - an online event registration company. Trickytix allows a customer to create an account, set up and style their event page and then begin selling tickets without any manual intervention from us. This is all achieved through a self-service interface. Typical events include lunches, meetings, fun runs, cycling or triathlon events, dinners, conferences, etc etc. It will be running under a closed beta trial with a number of companies from July 2008. Let us explore what Scott, co-founder of Trickytix , has to say about his venture and innovation coming out of Australia. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? My name is Scott Handsaker, and I am the Managing Director and co-founder of Trickytix, an online

Today we showcase the story of another successful startup and entrepreneur, Phillip Kingston, Co-Founder & CEO, of  Flogd Flogd is an Australian-based company that allows anyone to create a shop to sell stuff anywhere you can paste code. Sell from blogs, websites, and social networking sites like MySpace. It provides its users with a shopping cart system that handles postage, taxes and processing of the sale. It also partners with other companies to offer Flogd services natively in other applications. Let us explore what Philip has to say about his venture Flogd and his thoughts on entrepreneurship and innovation coming out of Australia. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I am a 22-year-old student at the University of Melbourne studying a Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Commerce. I am interested in human behaviour, social and environmental sustainability, and, I suppose, technology. I am a programmer by trade but much

In our ongoing coverage of startups coming out of Australia and interviews with CEOs, Media Personalities, Philanthropists, and VCs, to gauge the innovation and startup landscape in Australia, today we showcase our interview with, the co-founder of OurPatch - Regional And Rural Business Directory, Simon Wyk. I did this interview to learn more about OurPatch , its offerings, its progress and what it means to the regional and rural business of Australia. Let us explore what Simon has to say about the progress of OurPatch and the state of affairs in this domain in Australia. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I was born in South Africa and came to Australia in my mid-twenties. I started my career in marketing. Initially for a chemicals company and subsequently for a home improvements company. I then found myself in Interactive Communications and built the first commercial CD-ROM in Australia. We migrated from commercial CD-ROM

Today we showcase the story of another successful entrepreneur, Che Metcalfe, founder of Podmo from Adelaide, Australia. Podmo Mobile is a free mobile network for end users. Let us explore what Che has to say about his venture Podmo Mobile and his thoughts on Mobile Space and Innovation coming out of Australia. This is what he has to say in a candid interview with me : • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I grew up in Townsville and left for Sydney when I was 17 to get Guitar lessons. After a year or so I returned to Townsville to form a band, which we took to Adelaide. We won the battle of the bands at our first gig and did a lot of big support gigs for bands like the Angels, Southern Sons and Johnny Diesel. After a tour to Sydney, it dawned on me that I may work my but off in this industry for many years and get nowhere, so I left the band and decided to study. I enrolled in a Building Design and Drafting Diploma at TAFE where I first started using compu