Governments around the world want to know a lot about who we are and what we’re doing online and they want communications companies to help them find it. We don’t know a lot about when companies hand over this data, but we do know that it’s becoming increasingly common.

The cofounder of a pioneering Sydney-based robotics startup, with a Powerhouse Museum display and a successful crowdfunding campaign under its belt, says the sector is set to get much bigger but finance for projects remains an issue.

Bao-Minh Tran-Vo, the cofounder of fantasy footy app developer c8apps, might be in San Francisco, but being 12,658 kilometres from the MCG on AFL grand final day is unlikely to stop the sports aficionado from catching all the action on that one day in September.