The first presentation after lunch was from Agworld, a cloud-based platform for the agriculture industry. The Agworld platform uses zero-typing data capture in the form of the pen and replaced this with a digital pen, connected to a data capture system, to store data.

The second presentation was from Scott Frew (someone I have known for about 15 years since he ran the value-added distributor LAN Systems) from iAsset. Frew’s new company provides a platform for managing channel-based sales. The company already has customers around the planet, including Telstra and NetApp, and can be integrated with ERP tools and even Google Earth to visually represent assets. The system can also manage training to ensure that channel partners are skilled up appropriately.

The third presentation was from Dr Ashod Donikian from Navisens, which uses personal sensors to monitor the location of people in environments where methods such as GPS don’t work, such as underground. The technology can provide the location and status of personnel to prevent overcrowding in certain sections of a mine, or to determine the locations of workers in emergency situations. The technology is also suitable for use in battlefield situations. The wearer carries a device with a range of sensors, including inertial sensors, which offloads its data whenever it is connected to a network, and the output can be connected to whatever transmitter is appropriate.

The final presentation was from The Early Warning Network, which provides an early warning service for severe disturbances and disasters in real time. People receive notifications through multiple media to an accuracy of about 10 metres in real time. The company has multiple users already, with hundreds of thousands of alerts issued in Australia every month.

The first presentation of the group was from Alison Hardacre at Specialist Link, which links patients and practitioners to deliver better health outcomes. The service was developed in conjunction with Monash University and enables patients to choose their appropriate practitioners, and then manage their conditions and share this data with practitioners, and between practitioners. Hardacre says most software available today is developed for GPs, not specialists, and rarely goes beyond basic booking and invoicing. By incorporating more functionality, the Specialist Link service can save specialists 12 minutes admin time per patient.

The second presentation was from Guy Sewell at Thereitis.com, which promises a new way to search and experience images online. It takes images from websites  and rearranges them show them in a 3D  grid to make them easier to view and sort. The application is designed to support e-commere companies by reducing abandoned shopping carts and increasing impulse buying.

The final presentation before lunch was from Bart Jellema at ZeroMail. Jellema promises to integrate the many different buckets of information that consumers have – email, newsletters, social media feeds and so on.

The first presentation after the morning tea break was from goCatch, a company that has developed an app that lets taxi drivers connect directly with users, who can see exactly where taxi drivers are at any time. In a highly entertaining and informative presentation Andrew Campbell and Ned Moorfield took listeners through the problems that plague both taxi drivers and users.

The second presentation was from Dr Mark Reed from InterfereX, who took the audience through a presentation on his company’s solution to mobile coverage and data bottlenecks. InterfereX’s technology can improve data rates and coverage through better network planning using advanced mathematics to manage interference between cells in a network.

The third presentation was from Dan Nolan of Vtalk Holdings, who talked about his company’s development of a voice-over-IP telephone system designed to work with a business’s existing telephony system. The company’s proposition is that many businesses are failing to adopt VoIP because it is too complex – Vtalk aims to take that complexity away.

It might have been the extra coffee ingested at the morning tea break, but the presenters brought a lot more energy to the room. Interestingly this helped to spark a much greater level of chat on Twitter, with posts reflecting the energy of the presenters.

The second group presenting at #Tech23 was from the group ‘Meeting the needs of the enterprise’ and was kicked off by Matt Milosavljevic (@mmilo) from Bugherd. His company has created what it claims is the world’s simplest software big tracker. The company’s fo0unders are all engineers, so very familiar with the problems, and have already attracting $245,000 in funding.

The second presentation was given by Chandika Jayasundara (@chandika) from cinergix, whose software creatly enables users to create simple wire-frames that enable better visualisation of company information, and has already been adopted by 130,000 users. The company’s new tool enables the automatic creation of diagrams that include data from other systems such as Sakesforce.com.

The third company to present was Effective Measure. CEO Scott Julian (@scottjulian) outlined the company’s service for accurately measuring online audiences. The company is chasing after emerging markets, where it is seeking to become the official currency in those market when it comes to web ratings. The company has already raised $8 million, and is chasing an addressable market of $2.3 billion.

The final presentation was from Nicholas Gruen (@NicholasGruen) from Kaggle, a predictive data analytics platform that uses crowdsourcing to solve complex analytical probkems. The company is developing a community and creating a platform for a market that it estimates is worth $107 billion – of which $38 billion is outsourced today.

I’m currently sitting in the audience for Tech23, Australia’s premier showcase for early-stage technology companies.  In an opening address from the deputy premier the  Hon. Andrew Stoner, who gave plugs to the Australian Technology Showcase and MEGA, announced that the NSW Government would be supporting the Fishburners early-stage company workspace.

The first presentation was from Pem Dechen from ESR Momentum, an information management service for schools to help them track and manage the learning needs of students. Pem’s presentation included a passionate plea to the judges, invoking the words of Jerry Maguire ,’to help you, help us, help the children.”

Pem was followed by Sheng Yeo from OrionVM, which has built one of the fastest cloud computing platforms in the world, with a storage architecture designed to meed the future needs of cloud computing users. Sheng showed an impressive list of advisers as well as a strong growth pipeline.

The third presentation for the morning was from Catherine Prosser from StageBitz, who did a great job of articulating the issues faced by creative companies in both inventorying and even making money from the thousands of props that are created each year. A beta version has already been tested around the world, including Opera Australia, Bell Shakespeare Company and NIDA.