Innovators get leg-up in new NSW govt pitchfest

The NSW government’s most influential CIOs have settled on the first batch of finalists from a radical new sourcing initiative aimed at connecting suppliers directly with key decision makers.

The ‘Pitch to Pilot’ program was launched by the Department of Finance, Services and Innovation’s (DFSI) Innovation NSW team in September as an additional avenue to pitch innovative technology to government.  

It also benefits agencies by avoiding the often lengthy process of finding new technology through traditional procurement channels.

Both big and small players were called on to articulate a problem faced by NSW Police, the Department of Justice, Data Analytics Centre, Department of Industry, Transport for NSW and DFSI that could be solved using identity and security, artificial intelligence or machine learning.

Suppliers were asked that the pitches held the promise of “improved efficiencies, better services and enhanced outcomes for NSW citizens”, with shortlisted applicants to be given the opportunity to pilot the technology with government at a later stage.

However applications were to be restricted to products or services that already had been tested in the market with a customer and validated,and not technology in the ideation or development phases.

Now the government has revealed the 13 finalists from the 78 submission received from suppliers across the country, 86 percent of which were companies based in NSW. They include:

• Hyper Anna, an AI-powered analytics solution that can accelerate how raw data is turned into actionable insights
• Daisee, offering a suite of AI-driven speech analytics products called Lisa.
• Codebots, an AI-powered app building tool that is designed to help people with programming
• Quixxi Security, which provides a tool for mobile dev teams to harden their applications against cyber attack
• Mapcite, which helps companies use location based data to make better decisions using analytics
• Bright Innovations, which offers a platform that monitors traffic flows to prevent congestion
• Rulerr, a SaaS solution for determining who has access to company data across multiple systems
• Resolve Dispute Online (RDO), which offers online dispute management software
• SecureStack, an end-to-end security platform that helps IT managers address security risks

More traditional players also made the shortlist, including SAP - which pitched software to help identify behavioural patterns in citizens such as falling into debt and prevent it occurring – and Equifax – which pitched biometrics and liveness test that can integrate with digital services.