We’re here today with Sean Smith CEO of Wangle Technologies. Sean thanks for your time. What is the background to Wangle.
Audio Transcript
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Sean Smith: [00:00:15] Wangle started its life as a mobile Internet accelerator. We acquired some technology out of New Zealand and built that up into a essentially a VPN product which would sit on handsets and massively increase the speed of the mobile Internet. It would decrease the amount of data used. We ran into a little bit of a roadblock with some federal legislation which forced us to withdraw that product and build some additional capability which was around capturing network traffic on the way through for reasons of national security. It was a roadblock that wasn’t expected by the business and certainly caused considerable pain in terms of delays to launch and upsetting the expectations of our shareholders.
David Tasker: [00:00:59] But it did create a silver lining.
Sean Smith: [00:01:01] It did it enabled us to move from ostensibly a networking business to a data business. So by capturing Internet data on the way through and being able to analise it we’ve got a whole new capability which has substantially improved the long term opportunities of the business and the amount of the verticals which the business can move into. So we’ve been very excited about that.
David Tasker: [00:01:25] So what does the new data business look like.
Sean Smith: [00:01:27] Well we take into the underlying VPN platform and we’ve built an overlying in the cloud data analysis system which essentially analises the data as it flows through, turns it into useful information and then allows us to make some sense of that. And the first commercial product that we’re launching to utilise that system is Wangle Family Insights which is a child protection tool and we’ve partnered up with a medical research institute, Telethon Kids Institute. We’ve worked with them in terms of identifying what are the threats that exist on the Internet to children and then looked at the meta data passing through the network to see how do we marry up what the researchers have learned about the impacts on childhood development and behaviour with what the data actually has in there. And so that in itself is quite a complex scenario and we worked with the researchers for quite some time in terms of marrying up network meta data and with childhood behaviours. But the end result is a fantastic product that essentially interrogates network data in real time looks for behavioural threats, alerts parents in real time and then supports them with educational resources and additional tools to help them address the problems or identify.
David Tasker: [00:02:42] So this is more than blocking or an in the home solution?
Sean Smith: [00:02:46] Yeah. And in fact it’s an entirely different philosophy. When you think about it we didn’t want to develop a system that broke the trust between kids and parents. So the challenge as a blocking is that you’re setting up a barrier you’re telling kids that you don’t trust them and you’re stopping them from accessing the Internet. And the researchers that we worked with their view was well the Internet is integral part of the life of our children. They need to learn to use it safely and that means that they need to learn to use it safely and be resilient to the things that they find on their own and the only way they can do that is to work with parents in terms of identifying what the bad things are. Going to their parents to talk about it and allowing parents the opportunity to help them cope and explain the things that they might come across. So it’s a very, very different philosophy and one that hasn’t existed in market. Research from all over the world supports an approach that doesn’t restrict or prohibit access to the Internet. So we’re very excited to launch it.
David Tasker: [00:03:46] And what milestones should investors focus on from the company over the coming months?
Sean Smith: [00:03:51] Well I think launching the product is the first milestone and I’m hoping by the time this goes to air that that will have happened. And I’d watch very, very closely and that will be marketed heavily and there’ll be a great deal of public awareness built around not only the problem and the new approach to it but I guess the product itself. But then we’ll very quickly look at how to expand that so we’ll be looking for distribution partners. We’ve already spoken to considerable numbers of large potential distribution partners such as telcos and other organisations with access to parents. And whilst we’re doing that we’ll also be building out our international strategy. Our product is sitting in the cloud it doesn’t have any hardware. There’s almost no restraint in terms of scaling. And so as soon as we prove in market that the product is great and that parents love it we will very quickly move to expand overseas.
David Tasker: [00:04:43] Sean. Exciting times ahead. Thanks for your time.
