Telstra is building innovative growth businesses in new markets and industries, as well as driving innovation within our existing business, to help meet our ambition of becoming a world class technology company.
We define innovation as new ideas, new products or new services that overcome a problem or do something in a better, simpler way for our customers. There are four parts to our innovation approach – incubation, collaboration, new methods and, most importantly, people.
We are working on innovations that create opportunities and new possibilities for the things that matter, such as keeping people healthy, safe and creating a more liveable world.
Telstra Software Group
Software remains a key focus area as we drive growth through new businesses and digital ecosystems. Telstra Software Group aims to create long-term global growth in markets adjacent to Telstra’s core business.
Software Businesses
The Ooyala family of Over The Top (OTT) premium video platform capabilities has grown, as the acquisitions of Videoplaza and Nativ have been successfully integrated into the company. The Ooyala impairment we recognised in the year, reflects the changing dynamics in the intelligent video market and the business performance.
Ooyala remains a young and exciting company with leading offerings in intelligent video which continue to evolve and scale. This growing portfolio of products services Ooyala’s 500 worldwide customers, including broadcasters, media companies and high profile enterprises. Ooyala collectively serves 220 million unique viewers with 3.5 billion events every day, and was recently announced as the Media Solutions Partner for Facebook Live+++.
muru-D startup accelerator
Telstra’s startup accelerator muru-D operates out of Sydney and Singapore with a partner program also successfully trialed in Brisbane this year.
Since October 2013, muru-D has funded 44 startups and established a network of more than 390 active mentors, supporting 110 entrepreneurs who have collectively generated $4.2 million in revenue and raised $8.9 million in capital. This year we announced partnerships with leading accelerators, 500 Startups in Silicon Valley, The Junction in Tel Aviv, and HAX and Chin accelerator in Shanghai, significantly expanding muru-D’s global reach and network.
We opened a dedicated Innovation Lab – Gurrowa
In August 2015, we opened our Gurrowa Innovation Lab in Melbourne, an open innovation environment where Telstra, our enterprise customers, partners, incubators, vendors, and research institutes can connect and collaborate on cutting-edge technology.
We captured new ideas through our hackathons
Telstra hosted two hackathons at Gurrowa during the year, on the subjects of IT and Data Science, bringing together inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs from Australia and around the world. Participants created technology innovations in the health, bio-science and fit-technology space, and developed innovative and creative insights, visualisations and predictions based on a given dataset. In November 2015, we hosted our own Internet of Things Challenge hackathon in partnership with City of Melbourne, where participants spent a week creating a connected “thing” to improve life in the city.
Telstra partnered with NAB to create a new digital marketplace for the more than two million Australian small businesses. ‘Proquo*’ will help grow small businesses, offering an online platform to network, share skills and trade with each other.