Cognizant opens a Digital Business Collaboratory to help businesses win in the Digital Economy

Cognizant has announced the opening of its Digital Business Collaboratory in Melbourne, Australia. The Collaboratory provides a dedicated space, technology, managed innovation process, and a team of experts so clients can work with Cognizant and partners to design, prototype, and build innovative solutions for the digital economy. Philip Dalidakis, Minister for Small Business, Innovation and Trade, Government of Victoria, inaugurated the Collaboratory by cutting the digital “ribbon” with a Virtual Reality light sabre.

“Cognizant’s new Collaboratory opening in Victoria is a huge vote of confidence for our local tech sector and the growing talent pool we have here,” said Philip Dalidakis. “To have another world leading digital company choose Melbourne as its operational base for Australia cements our reputation as a magnet for tech and business investment.”

As part of the opening ceremony, Cognizant conducted a workshop to demonstrate the power of the Collaboratory in reimagining Melbourne of 2030 through innovative applications of technology. These ideas include making data about Melbourne’s people, places, services and events available on a single platform to Melburnians; creating the world’s safest and most ecofriendly network of autonomous vehicles that can understand each other’s location, speed and intent by using broadcast signals from beacons and other vehicles; and making customer purchases available across a wider array of cafés to expand the ‘pay it forward’ initiative where customers pay for an extra coffee or meal with their purchase to help a homeless person.

“A great example of the power of digital technologies is our customised data capture platform designed by Odecee to give us real insights into our hospital programs and enable Starlight to have a greater impact on seriously ill children,” said Louise Baxter, CEO of Starlight Children’s Foundation, a non-profit organisation whose mission is to brighten the lives of seriously ill children, adolescent and their families. Starlight worked with Odecee, a Cognizant Digital Business company, to develop a system that captures and reports on how people are interacting with their programmes and does so in a way that is sensitive to the users’ needs and appropriate for the hospital environment. “These insights show Starlight how children and their families are using our programmes and will help us to make positive changes to our programmes and enable us to reach even more seriously ill children,” said Baxter.

“We’ve learned that success in the digital economy means balancing new technologies with a deep understanding of human wants and needs,” said Dr. John Burgin, Head of Digital Business — Asia Pacific and Middle East, Cognizant. “Our Collaboratory in Melbourne will bring the Internet of Things (IoT) to life and apply artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver brand new experiences for people. The Collaboratory integrates these elements in a practical creative space that will help our clients and partners innovate securely and quickly.”