Monkeying around with mobile phones

Innovation

It's definitely not a case of monkey business for two Adelaide entrepreneurs, who are turning the mobile phone game industry on its head.

Luke Beard and Brian Doidge, who started the company Monkey Physics two years ago, specialise in the exciting new market of software application and game development for mobile devices.

Believing there was an opening for bigger, brighter games with better content that could be played on mobile phones, Beard and Doidge, both avid gamers, put their heads together and developed a multimedia gaming system for 3G phones.

What they found was a way to break up game content, so users could download it bit by bit, getting over the hurdle of mobile phones being unable to download large amounts of content in one hit. This also meant game developers and designers could be more ambitious with the programs they create.

For their work, Monkey Physics won a federal commercialisation grant and has built links with international telecommunications companies to take its technology to the world.

Beard and Doidge, participants in the Graduate Entrepreneurial program at the Adelaide University Research Park, Thebarton Campus, have also become the latest recipients of the Ben Heinsohn-Deer Commemorative Medal.

The medal was established in 2002 in honour of Ben Heinsohn-Deer, a participant in Adelaide's Graduate Entrepreneurial program, who was tragically killed in Indonesia in 2002.

The medal is presented to the top ranking candidate(s) for the program each year for seven years.

In 2004 Beard and Doidge successfully applied to the university's Graduate Entrepreneurial Program and, in addition to the Ben Heinsohn-Deer Medal, were each awarded a Premier's Enterprise Scholarship.

The scholarship provides a place in an incubator program at Adelaide University's Research Park at Thebarton, enrolment in a Masters program through the university's Education Centre for Innovation and Commercialisation (ecic), and support valued at $50,000.

The scholarship aims to reward and encourage entrepreneurial graduates to develop innovative IT&C businesses for South Australia, and to enable these graduates to travel overseas to pursue their business development.

The primary goal of the travel will be to license the company's technology in overseas markets, and to gain acceptance into markets where 3G (next generation telephony) is or has been integrated into the telecommunication systems.

The trip will also enable them to gauge overseas interest, to meet with key industry players, innovators and market strategists, and to gain a better understanding of future technologies and developments in their industry.

In addition, and of great importance to their business development, the scholarship will also enable them to attend one of the world's largest gaming conferences, E3, the Electronic Entertainment Industry Expo, to be held in Los Angeles in May 2005.

Applications for the Graduate Entrepreneurial Program for 2006 close in July 2005. For more information contact Kankana McPherson, Coordinator Graduate Entrepreneurial Programs, on 08 8303 3273.

Story by Howard Salkow