Enterprise: Secure My Treasures
‘Wow’ factor: A cloud-based storage service that is easy to use for older people so they can readily store their documents and treasured memories.
Char Weeks has always been driven by a passion to embrace change. During her days as a medical student and in her role in health information technology, Char was committed to her support for innovative programs designed to improve quality, safety and service delivery in healthcare. “Spending some time working in a role in health information technology in the United Kingdom helped me think differently about healthcare service delivery,” Char says.
The inspiration behind her start-up was the Mallacoota bushfires in 2019, which had a profound impact on her. “It broke my heart to watch the locals bolting from a raging inferno to a barge with little more than the clothes on their backs,” she recalls. “I felt so helpless, and I found myself pondering the challenges and enormous stress of replacing personal documents and life’s special memorabilia.”
The tragedy served as a lightbulb moment for Char to take action and help prevent such a situation recurring. “I wanted to create a solution that was sensitive to people’s feelings and I realised that people with no family and older people would also find this product useful,” she explains. Char turned to technology, in particular online storage and the cloud, for the answer. But she determined that this would not just be another cloud-based storage service, the typical ‘cold’ technology solution. “It had to have a ‘warm beating heart’, [and be] an app friendly enough that older people would use it, and enjoy doing so,” she avers.
“There is the potential to expand the app into international markets.”
The answer Char came up with is Secure My Treasures, a suite of 22 ‘chests’ or structured, secure online safes, that store a user’s important life information and can provide alternative access to authorised users or trustees if required. Clients can build as many chests as they need and upload unlimited documents, assured of their security thanks to encryption and a three-factor authentication, including the Australia Post identity check, which is built into the system.
Char proudly calls Secure My Treasures “technology with heart”. Older people can use the app easily to record their life journey while feeling a sense of control and independence, assuring that their wishes, particularly at the end of life, are known.
To help get Secure My Treasures off the ground, Char applied for the New Wave program of the University of New South Wales. Being part of the program was an enriching experience for Char, as she learned a lot of things that would help determine the direction she needed to take with the venture. “The fantastic mentoring, coaching and support that the UNSW Founders New Wave program offered has given me additional knowledge and strengthened my resolve to succeed,” she says.
Being new to the market – the business is still in the development stage and will officially launch later this year – Char wants to focus initially on strengthening Secure My Treasures’ presence within Australia, although she sees potential to expand the app into international markets in due course. She aims to accomplish this by pursuing a mindset that is client-centric and receptive to innovation. “We will establish a client advisory board so that we can receive feedback about the product, its security, accessibility, user-friendliness and features,” Char explains. “We are also keen to learn about innovations in identity checking and online security from a global perspective.”
This article is a part of our female founders feature which can be read in full here.
