Flinders Uni spin-out CleverTar wins global award, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s tick of approval
AN Adelaide company, spun out of Flinders University, has won a global award for its clever technology that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak wants for “for every little kid — for education as well as for the elderly”.
AN Adelaide company, spun out of Flinders University, has won a global award for its clever technology that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak wants for “for every little kid — for education as well as for the elderly”.
Health IT company Clevertar, co-founded by Tanya Newhouse and Martin Luerssen in 2012, was judged the global Best Start-Up — Tech Innovation a judging panel comprising Mr Wozniak and a panel of judges at the Talent Unleashed Awards in Sydney last night.
Ms Newhouse will travel to Silicon Valley next year with four other national winners to tour some of the world’s leading technology companies and also have the chance to gain some world-class entrepreneurial advice from Mr Wozniak, who she pitched to last night in the run up to the win.
Clevertar introduces virtual agents — clever avatars — to care environments in a bid to support patients with chronic conditions at a fraction of the cost of human intervention.
CleverTar’s flagship product is Anna Cares, an online platform designed to motivate patients towards better adherence — the single largest factor in preventing avoidable hospitalisation.
The technology uses patients’ own mobile and tablet devices.
“I almost want Anna Cares (CleverTar’s product) for every little kid — for education as well as for the elderly,” Mr Wozniak said in his comments at the award ceremony.
Ms Newhouse, chief operating officer at CleverTar, said she was thrilled with the win and Mr Wozniak’s on-stage endorsement.
“We are in the midst of exciting times with our US and Australian pilot with Anna Cares and also raising about $2 million to expand.
“So this win comes at the perfect time. Moreover, Steve commenting on us - out of all the winners - was just fantastic,” she said.
International giant Konica Minolta is an investor in CleverTar, tipping in $600,000 into the business last year. The business also received a $420,000 Australian commercialisation grant, which has underpinned its Pennsylvania, US, trial.
CleverTar has also been involved in the My Diabetes Coach digital health program, funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council partnership grant and being conducted in partnership with Diabetes Australia and Diabetes Victoria, Diabetes WA and Diabetes Queensland, Roche Diagnostics and The Bupa Health Foundation.
The My Diabetes Coach app features a virtual health coach named Laura who has weekly chats with users and guides them through key topics such as regular blood glucose monitoring, healthy eating and being physically active.
Clevertar has global aspirations for ‘Anna’ and her successor virtual agents.
“We all know that health is the largest component of most national budgets, and chronic disease is the largest contributor to health costs. Our virtual agents are primed to address this problem at scale as they can influence behaviour change at a population level,” said Ms Newhouse.
CleverTar was one of two Australian companies with the winning pitch, including Perth-based ResApp for being the Best Tech IPO / Venture Capital Raising.
The other Asia-Pacific winners were ODOCS (Best Start Up Social Impact), TherapyBox (Best Digital SME — Tech Innovation) and Neal Cross, CIO of DBS (Most Disruptive CIO/CTO).
The five global category winners were chosen from the regional winners in each of the five categories of the Talent Unleashed awards, and selected by an international panel of judges, including Mr Wozniak and Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson.