Engineering New Capability Panel | Founders from Cortisonic, Monadd-AI, Sydekick Robotics

Cicada x Tech23: Australia's biggest deep tech event As the biggest deep tech event in the country, Cicada x Tech23 is not just a showcase but a movement. A movement to champion 23 visionary founders, connect them with the right people, and accelerate their journey from lab to market, from startup to scale. The 2026 Tech23 cohort is tackling challenges across five national opportunities: a new system of care for our strained health system, upgrading the built world for a changing climate, re-sourcing value from waste and untapped resources, strengthening Australia's sovereignty in space and defence, and engineering new capability in AI, quantum and robotics. These ventures represent the best of Australian deep tech: bold ideas backed by world-class science, and a mission to build a more sustainable, secure, and sovereign future. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ About Cortisonic Cortisonic builds AI hardware that computes using phonons – the quantised units of sound – instead of conventional electronics. The company's nanomechanical oscillators run inference directly as phonon vibrations, using a fraction of the power a conventional chip would need. It means stronger, more reliable power for sensors, autonomous systems, and other edge deployments where a standard processor is impractical. About Monadd-AI Frontier AI without the GPU cluster price tag. Monadd-AI's patented monaddLLM streams model parameters through fast storage instead of costly GPU memory, cutting infrastructure costs up to 20x and running fully offline, built for SMEs in regulated fields like legal, healthcare and finance. About Sydekick Robotics Sydekick Robotics is building a full-stack robotic automation platform powered by Physical AI. Through its proprietary, industry-grade Physical AI models, Sydekick Robotics brings human-level dexterity and adaptability that can integrate directly to any factory floor. This empowers manufacturing teams, system integrators and businesses of any size to automate complex, highly variable operations that were previously considered impossible to handle with traditional, rigidly programmed solutions. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Learn more about Cicada x Tech23 https://www.cicadainnovations.com/cic... Learn more about Cortisonic https://cortisonic.com Learn more about Monadd-AI https://monadd.ai Learn more about Sydekick Robotics https://sydekickrobotics.com And a massive shout-out to our ecosystem! To our sponsors, Main Sequence Ventures, NSW Government, Investment NSW, Westpac, City of Sydney, CFO Plus, CSIRO, FPA Patent Attorneys, Adelaide University, Radium Capital, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Addisons, Techvisa, InvestHK, The Onset, University of Sydney, Honda Xcelerator Ventures and UNSW Founders, for supporting Tech23.