{"id":44696,"date":"2023-10-20T15:37:49","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/security-in-vein-startup-week-sydney-launches-with-a-pitch-showcase-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:37:49","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:37:49","slug":"security-in-vein-startup-week-sydney-launches-with-a-pitch-showcase-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/security-in-vein-startup-week-sydney-launches-with-a-pitch-showcase-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Security in vein: Startup Week Sydney launches with a pitch showcase – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Sydney startup that wants to make identification as easy as a wave of your hand was one of ten startups given the opportunity to pitch at the NSW Parliament to a room of politicians and industry leaders.<\/p>\n

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The event on Thursday night marked the launch of StartupWeek Sydney, and gave ten local startups 40 seconds to get their message across and make valuable connections with industry.<\/p>\n

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The startups on display came from five industries: fintech, energy innovation, transport and logistics, medtech and digital creative.<\/p>\n

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Ben Melia from identification security startup physiSECURE pitched at the event, and says it was a great experience that resulted in many worthwhile and actionable contacts.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe response was great,\u201d Melia says. \u201cThere were lots of spontaneous conversations with government members that were saying it was cool and wanting to partner with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Identification in the palm of your hand<\/b><\/p>\n

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Sydney-based physiSECURE is a biometric identification organisation providing identification for transactional payments through scanning the veins in an individual\u2019s palm.<\/p>\n

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Melia says this is a way to avoid the costs and annoyance associated with wallets and cards.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt really takes away the human losses \u2013 we forget stuff all the time, we lose stuff and stuff gets stolen,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe realised there was a fundamental gap when it came to identification. If you want to be identified you need to have a range of things \u2013 birth certificates, driver\u2019s licences, credits \u2013 and everything in your wallet relates to your identification.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe challenge everyone has it that we forget things and we lose our wallets. The solution is to ask how you can combine these items into something you can\u2019t lose and someone else can\u2019t steal.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The startup offers hardware and software, with a Fujitsu palm scanner that requires the user to wave their hand over from 5cm away, and backend software that allows for the biometric data security and systems access.<\/p>\n

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Theoretically this could eventually mean we won\u2019t have to carry around all those pesky identification cards, with the answer literally being in the palm of our hands, Melia says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe only thing we can rely on is ourselves and our physical being,\u201d he says. \u201cYou don\u2019t know it so you can\u2019t forget it, and you need to be alive and present for it to work.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe want to reach a point in time when we won\u2019t need wallets and keys, you\u2019ll just need your hands.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe palm vein technology allows for a scan of the internal structure of the hand and takes about five million points of differential data. Finger prints, which are very legal and identifiable, take about 16 to 24 points. This is much more in-depth and specific.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The concept, unsurprisingly, comes with a whole heap of privacy and security concerns, but Melia says there are a whole range of fail-safes in place and all the data is encrypted.<\/p>\n

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Meeting with government and industry<\/b><\/p>\n

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The pitching event at NSW Parliament was an especially useful experience for physiSECURE, with the startup relying on good relationships with government and industry to authenticate the technology and expand it nationally and globally.<\/p>\n

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The startup\u2019s main focus now is to be compliant with the government\u2019s new National e-Authentication Framework, and are currently in discussions with state governments and even the United Nations.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe know what we want from an organisational point of view, so this was about how that aligns with government departments,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was really fruitful and made getting to that roadmap much more effective.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWithout this event the government wouldn\u2019t have heard of us. They were all talking about startups afterwards. All these ideas are really disruptive and the startups are doing cool and innovative things, but without these contacts and networking the ideas will just stay there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The event was a sign of the NSW government\u2019s increasing focus on tech and innovation, StartupWeek Sydney national manager Michelle Williams says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWith a new focus on innovation and entrepreneurialism to promote future job growth, Sydney\u2019s startup community has never before enjoyed this level of interest, momentum and support,\u201d Williams says.<\/p>\n

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The other startups on display:<\/b><\/p>\n