Grants guru in running for national award
GEELONG’S Matthew Fletcher is celebrating after the firm he leads was recognised for its innovative use of technology in developing a localised business funding finder.
The grant finder developed by GrantGuru with the City of Greater Bendigo will be a finalist in the Australian Information Industry Association awards after a merit award at the state level for research and development project of the year.
Two Deakin University projects are also through to the national finals after winning entries in the association’s award program, which celebrates innovation in the digital economy.
Mr Fletcher, GrantGuru’s general manager and also president of Entrepreneurs Geelong, said the Bendigo Grant Finder had helped a number of businesses find much-needed financial assistance to create jobs for the local economy.
“We’re really excited to see councils help their local business community with such a practical tool,” he said.
“We managed to compete with applications from IBM, RMIT and the University of Melbourne, the winning application for our category was a new style of hearing aid . . . so to be considered in this calibre is a big deal.”
He said a handful of other municipal councils were now looking to adopt the grant finder model
Deakin University’s CollabHero won the undergraduate tertiary student section and Deakin Genie won the artificial intelligence or machine learning innovation of the year.
CollabHero allows educators to create peer feedback tasks for students to reflect and evaluate work of their peers
Deakin Genie is a personalised digital assistant designed to help students navigate and organise their tertiary experience.
The Australian Information Industry Association is the peak representative body for the technology sector. Winners and merit recipients across all categories go on to represent Victoria at the national awards to be announced on August 30.