This article is a branded editorial feature spotlighting Australian tech innovators and organisations shaping the next wave of digital breakthroughs.
Australia’s tech ecosystem isn’t short on ideas, but the people behind the most meaningful innovation often operate under the radar. This list highlights some of those individuals, introducing some of Australia’s best tech innovators and their innovations. These are leaders who combine technical insight with commercial realism, shaping tools and platforms that reflect how people and businesses actually work, and what they need to scale and grow. They serve many different industries so their paths are varied, but their impact is not accidental.
Here’s a closer look at the tech innovators helping define what Australian technology looks like now and where it’s heading next.
Grace Seah-Tan
For Grace Seah-Tan, gifting has always been about connection, yet she kept seeing how complicated, wasteful, or impersonal the process had become. Plastic cards sitting unused in drawers, gifts impossible to send across borders, small businesses shut out of the digital landscape. From that frustration came Okuru, a platform founded in Perth and built around a simple idea: meaningful gifting shouldn’t create waste or barriers.
Today, Okuru has grown into a global digital gift card ecosystem spanning six countries. The company’s early innovation was made possible through the Australian government’s R&D grant, setting the foundation for Okuru’s approach to secure digital gifting.
At the heart of Okuru’s platform is its proprietary app-to-app transfer technology, specifically engineered to prevent gift cards from falling into the hands of scammers and thieves. To achieve that, Okuru’s security architecture goes beyond standard protocols.
The platform deliberately avoids retaining customer credit card details, instead leveraging secure integration with PayPal accounts to maintain payment separation. This robust technical foundation enables Okuru to offer an intuitive catalogue of digital gift cards from both independent retailers and household names. The platform functions as a secure digital wallet with instant cross-border gifting capabilities, letting families connect across time zones without delays or security concerns. For small businesses, it provides digital infrastructure typically accessible only to major brands, opening doors to international customers.
Grace’s approach blends cutting-edge technology with a human-centered ethic: sustainability instead of plastic waste, connection instead of transactional gifting, accessibility for businesses that might otherwise be left behind.
Andrew Sirianni
For Andrew Sirianni, software only works if it reflects how a business actually runs. As Director of Dcode Group, he has built a practice around translating messy, real-world operations into systems that are clear, reliable, and built to last. His background spans software development, product strategy, accounting, and business operations, and this experience shapes how he approaches technology decisions that carry real financial and operational risk.
Dcode Group partners with organisations that have outgrown spreadsheets, rigid SaaS tools, or legacy platforms that no longer fit. Much of the firm’s work sits where operations, finance, and workflow collide, building custom systems for industries like construction, logistics, equipment hire, and asset-heavy businesses where accuracy and uptime matter more than novelty.
Andrew is known for working closely with leadership teams to move projects from ambiguity to production. That might mean replacing fragmented systems with a single operational platform, modernising outdated infrastructure, or designing integrations across accounting, payments, and third-party services. While Dcode Group uses AI to support automation and efficiency, Andrew is deliberate about where and how it’s applied; prioritising stability, safety, and long-term scalability over shortcuts.
What distinguishes Andrew’s approach is a business-owner mindset. He treats every system as something he may need to scale, support, and explain to non-technical teams because often, he does.
For Andrew, technology is a strategic asset, not a line item. The real innovation lies in building systems that quietly remove friction, create visibility, and grow alongside the business they support.
Elyse Bouzanis
Before founding EB Design Co., Elyse Bouzanis built her career at Deloitte Digital and Woolworths, two of Australia’s most complex digital environments. At Deloitte, she worked across diverse industries and brands, while at Woolworths she helped design large-scale digital products used by millions. These experiences shaped her belief that technology only works when grounded in real human needs. EB Design Co. was created to bring that standard of research-led, user-centred thinking to organisations seeking purposeful digital experiences, without the weight of big-consultancy delivery.
Based in Sydney, the studio combines research, usability testing, content and digital design, along with media and event marketing, to help clients across wellness, lifestyle, private and public sectors create intuitive and meaningful experiences. Elyse works at the intersection of expertise and evidence, using insight to shape websites, apps, branding, campaigns and events that are both beautiful and grounded in real user behaviour.
What sets EB Design Co. apart is its intimacy. Every project is founder-led, allowing for faster iteration, clearer communication, and design decisions that are both strategic and deeply considered. Clients work directly with someone who understands enterprise-grade rigor yet moves with the agility of a specialist studio.
Elyse’s perspective as a tech innovator is shaped by a simple belief: digital experiences should make life easier, not harder. She pairs deep insight with thoughtful design, helping organisations create moments that feel natural, human and genuinely supportive. At EB Design Co., the goal is always the same; build digital touchpoints that people understand, trust and return to, because they simply work.
Sanjay Krishnaa
For Sanjay Krishnaa, technology innovation only matters when it delivers real‑world outcomes. As Managing Partner at Quantum Tech Hub, he works at the intersection of strategic ambition and disciplined execution — ensuring organisations don’t just imagine the future but build it. Across his global career, Sanjay has led and advised organisations through high‑stakes inflection points, helping them scale, modernise, and solve complex business and operational challenges with precision.
Quantum Tech Hub was created in response to a recurring industry gap: strategies that sound compelling in the boardroom but fail to translate into action. Sanjay built the firm to close that gap. By combining executive‑level advisory with hands-on delivery, Quantum Tech Hub helps organisations turn intent into operating models, teams, and systems that perform under real‑world conditions. Technology is central to this work — from network and 5G transformation to AI adoption, cybersecurity uplift, and large‑scale cloud modernisation.
A signature strength of the firm is its expertise in establishing Global Capability Centres (GCCs) and designing Build–Operate–Transfer (BOT) models for global enterprises. These structures enable organisations to expand delivery capacity, optimise costs, and access deep talent pools in India — while de-risking expansion and accelerating scale. For companies navigating growth or transformation, GCCs and BOT models offer a structured yet flexible pathway to build capability at speed.
Clients engage Quantum Tech Hub to sharpen priorities, improve operational efficiency, implement critical technologies, and design business models grounded in market reality. At its core, Sanjay’s work is about creating momentum — enabling organisations to move forward with clarity, resilience, and the confidence to compete and scale in an increasingly complex landscape.
Thomas Fogwell
For most small business owners, payments are a quiet tax on every sale. Tap a card, lose two percent. Run a loyalty program nobody uses. Watch customers chase discounts at bigger competitors who can afford to outspend you on marketing.
Thomas Fogwell spent years in payments infrastructure before deciding the system wasn’t built for businesses like these. So he started building one that was.
FUNDiMO is an Australian fintech that lets merchants accept payments, at a fixed transaction fee, while giving them tools to bring customers back without the usual complexity.
The loyalty program works differently than most because FUNDiMO rewards are worth a dollar for a dollar and can be spent at any participating business. Merchants buy points and give them out however they choose for a five-star review, a repeat visit, a referral. It turns loyalty from something passive into something they control.
The same goes for promotions. Merchants can create their own coupons and vouchers directly through the platform, without printing flyers or paying for another service. For customers, it’s simpler too: one app, real rewards they’ll actually use, and a way to skip card surcharges when paying in-store or online.
Thomas is deliberate about what FUNDiMO doesn’t do. There’s no need for expensive hardware, no complex integrations, and no sharing of personal customer data. Merchants get insights into loyalty patterns and behaviour, but the information is anonymised while customers stay in control of their privacy.
FUNDiMO is launching soon for both businesses and consumers.
Edward Barraclough
Edward Barraclough’s entry into agtech grew from firsthand exposure to both agriculture and commercial drone operations. Time spent on his family’s livestock farm, combined with years flying drones across energy, infrastructure and remote sites, highlighted a clear imbalance.
Other sectors managed complex assets with sophisticated tools; agriculture often did not. That gap led to a simple question: why was livestock management still largely manual in an age of autonomy?
In 2023, Edward founded Drone-Hand Inc, Australia’s first locally developed autonomous, machine-learning driven drone livestock management platform, and the first designed to operate entirely offline. Built for remote environments where connectivity is unreliable or nonexistent, Drone-Hand enables frequent, repeatable monitoring without reliance on cloud services, mobile networks or fixed infrastructure.
Via autonomous drone systems, including semi-autonomous quadcopters for routine stock and water checks, long-range fixed-wing VTOL drones for vast stations, and fully automated drone-in-a-box deployments for scheduled, hands-off operations. These systems provide livestock location, well-being, counts, water and infrastructure visibility, and support long-range autonomous mustering.
Through direct collaboration with JBS Australia & MLA, Drone-Hand has also expanded into high-density feedlots using fixed-camera computer-vision systems for livestock traceability, condition scoring and early health detection.
Drone-Hand is designed to be practical and durable rather than theoretical. By reducing labour demands, emissions & livestock losses, while improving safety and delivering continuous situational awareness across some of the world’s most challenging production environments, Edward’s work demonstrates how autonomous systems and machine intelligence can scale livestock management — Australian innovation built on real-world experience, with growing global impact.
Julie Leitao
Julie Leitao has spent her career living in the space where digital ambition often breaks down. As CEO of Epic Igniter, she brings a blend of strategic thinking and delivery discipline shaped by years of building technology inside complex, revenue-critical environments.
Julie and her co-founder Alfie Leitao encountered the problem while scaling their own business after its acquisition by WPP. During that period, they helped build and run an enterprise technology hub and saw a pattern repeat itself. Organisations had clear digital strategies, but execution was fragmented. Agencies planned. Developers built. Accountability blurred. Outcomes suffered.
That experience led to the creation of The Igniter Group, a venture builder designed to close the gap between thinking and doing. The group operates through two connected arms.
Epic Igniter delivers custom, mission-critical platforms using embedded, full-time cross-border teams. The approach combines senior strategic leadership with global delivery efficiency, balancing speed with continuity and quality.
Their Saas in BETA is the product outcome of that philosophy. It is a B2B ecommerce platform designed to reduce friction in complex buying journeys.
Central to both is an end-to-end delivery approach where the same team owns decisions from problem definition through to build and release. It’s a response to the reality that most digital failures don’t come from bad ideas, but from disconnected delivery.
For Julie, the focus is not launch hype, but proving that when delivery is aligned, execution can finally keep pace with strategy.
Emily Harridge
Emily Harridge didn’t come to AI chasing novelty. She came to it with questions. After more than twenty years working across television, branding, post-production, and digital design, she’d spent her career inside traditional creative pipelines where timing matters, judgement matters, and quality is non-negotiable. When new tools began reshaping how visual content could be made, her instinct was to figure out how the new ways could actually work in practice.
That thinking led to Virtual Playground, a Melbourne-based creative production studio operating where design, technology, and AI intersect. Emily founded the studio to help brands and agencies experiment with emerging technologies without losing the craft and clarity that underpin good creative work.
Virtual Playground produces high-end visual content, including AI-assisted video, motion graphics, immersive experiences, and brand imagery, but the real value lies in how that work is made. It also integrates AI as a production tool to remove friction, speed up iteration, and unlock ideas that would otherwise be too slow, too expensive, or too complex while keeping creative decisions firmly human-led.
Clients often arrive at Virtual Playground intrigued by the potential of these new tools yet wary of their complexity. Emily acts as a bridge, translating unfamiliar technologies into grounded, usable workflows. The result is work that feels resolved and strategic, rather than experimental for its own sake.
As creative industries adapt to new technologies, Emily’s work offers a counterpoint to hype. She demonstrates that true innovation doesn’t discard human expertise, but rather evolves it, with intention and experience guiding every step.
Ash Sachdev
Ash Sachdev didn’t set out to build “just another platform.” What drew him to bring Care For Kids to the market was a very human problem: finding childcare in Australia is far more stressful than it needs to be. Too many websites, too little clarity, endless phone calls, and no easy way to compare options side by side, all while parents are already juggling work, family, and time pressure.
As CEO, Ash has focused on turning that chaos into something simpler and more transparent. Care For Kids is now Australia’s largest childcare comparison site, used by nearly 200,000 parents each month. Its real innovation is how the platform mirrors the way parents actually search and decide. Families can compare services, enquire directly, and now book centre tours online at a time that suits them, without bouncing between multiple websites. By the end of the year, thousands of centres will support direct tour bookings through the platform.
Ash brings a background spanning digital platforms, property, government, and enterprise environments, and that breadth shows in how the business operates. Internally, he builds high-trust teams that move quickly but stay accountable. Externally, the focus is on removing friction from a process that matters deeply to families.
Care For Kids also supports providers, helping them understand demand, improve visibility, and connect with parents earlier in their decision-making journey. For Ash, the work is about building a platform that earns trust and families can rely on.
Clinton Mills
In many classrooms, the most important decisions about learning are often made in moments no system ever records. Clinton Mills saw that gap up close as a teacher marking student work, day after day. He could identify patterns, pinpoint misunderstandings, and see exactly what each student needed next. Then the process forced all of that insight into a single grade, and the detail was lost.
That problem became the foundation for rubric+.
As a practising Head of Literature in Queensland, Clinton partnered with tech co-founder Bill Clasquin to design a platform that preserves professional judgement instead of compressing it. rubric+ captures assessment decisions at the point they’re made, recording each rubric judgement as structured, curriculum-linked evidence without changing how teachers teach or mark.
The impact is subtle but profound: a task becomes a map of demonstrated skills, an exam score turns into a profile of strengths and gaps, students gain clarity they can act on, teachers see patterns early, and leaders get insight before problems escalate.
Clinton’s work is driven by a belief that equity in education depends on access to meaningful insight. When evidence is visible and usable, support becomes timely rather than reactive.
What distinguishes rubric+ is that it doesn’t add dashboards to thin data. It changes what schools can produce, making the invisible work of teaching persistent, consistent, and actionable. In doing so, the rubric+ team is helping shift education’s data culture toward something far more human: understanding, not just measurement.
Follow these 10 Australian tech innovators now and stay inspired as they lead the next wave of digital breakthroughs in 2026.
Disclaimer: This is a paid branded content feature for general information only. Some or all profiles were created in collaboration with featured individuals or organisations and may include contributor-supplied information. Accuracy is intended at publication date, but readers should independently verify details and seek appropriate professional advice before making technology or commercial decisions
This is branded content.
