Startups

iniVation was founded in 2015; I am co-founder and CEO. Our co-founders invented the field of neuromorphic vision. It develops neuromorphic vision technologies for autonomous systems. Markets include automotive, consumer electronics, robotics, and aerospace. We have shipped products to over 700 organizations all over the world, and we helped to send the world's first neuromorphic technology to space in early 2021. Our products have won prizes including a CES Best of Innovation 2020 Award, and a Red Dot Best of the Best Design Award 2022.

QuantActions was founded in 2016. It analyzes the patterns of tapping on smartphones to infer the user’s cognitive status, without infringing on the user’s privacy. The applications include healthcare (particularly monitoring of neurological disorders), employee tracking for critical jobs (e.g. aviation) and insurance. I co-founded and served as chairman of the company until its first seed financing in 2022.

iniLabs incubates neuromorphic technologies, including iniVation and SynSense which it helped to get started. It also created and co-sponsors the Misha Mahowald Prize in Neuromorphic Engineering. I co-founded the company and sit on the board, and I was President and CEO from 2009-2017.

SynSense (formerly aiCTX) was founded in 2017. It produces a new type of neuromorphic processor for ultra-low-power applications, for example for wearable and implantable devices, and IoT. I served as founding chairman of the company until its Series A funding.

YouRehab was my first investor-funded startup, from 2010. It sells VR neurorehabilitation devices, based on work from my research group. YouRehab created the world's first full bimanual VR rehabilitation system using data glove input. From 2010 to 2014 I served on the board and as CTO, and interim CEO in 2013-2014. The company was acquired by Reha-Stim. The most rewarding parts of the experience were (1) shipping systems to over a dozen countries and treating thousands of patients, and (2) seeing depressed children and elderly patients smile while using our products. Here is the first archived page of the company from 2010.

I worked on the design of high-temperature components for high-efficiency gas turbines for power generation. My job was to simulate the components and predict when and how they were going to break (e.g. via cracking or vibration or excessive deformation at high temperature). Then we would change the design to improve overall performance. The simulations were compared with real measurements from a full-scale turbine test site and ex-service parts from power stations around the world. This work led to a number of patents. I also accelerated the analysis process, reducing the model building time from around two weeks to less than one day. Much later, an account of some of my experiences there was published in an article on Forbes.

This was the first company I co-founded. I started working on it as a hobby, when I was too young to get a summer internship in a software company. The first product was a tool for recording, calculating and displaying scores for platform and springboard diving competitions (written using Turbo Pascal on MS-DOS) . This was a relatively new idea, and the software was used for the Australian National Diving Championships in 1993 and 1996. A live feed of the scores was sent to the live broadcast TV feed for Fox Sports. Later we built an early example of what is now called an asset management platform for urban infrastructure maintenance, and a database for managing an undergraduate social induction program at Monash University.

TUSC (acquired later by Ericsson) produced network fault management software for Telstra. I worked there while studying, mainly doing software testing, test room setup and bug fixing. The software allowed Telstra to manage network faults across the whole continent from a small number of control rooms. Here's an archived page of the company from around the time I was there. I also learned to juggle while working there.