Cognitive Advantage, born at UNSW Launch in Canberra, is using technology and employable graduates to close Australia's connectivity gap.
When Charles Winsor left the Royal Australian Air Force, he saw a problem hiding in plain sight: most of the continent is without reliable connectivity, and existing systems are dangerously centralised. His start-up, Cognitive Advantage, is changing that with UNSW Launch’s backing.
If you live in a densely populated part of Australia like Sydney or Melbourne, chances are stable mobile phone and internet coverage are part of your everyday. But in regional, rural and remote areas of the country, it’s a different story.
“Australia is one of the worst connected countries in the world,” says Charles Winsor, founder of off-grid connectivity start-up, Cognitive Advantage. “Telcos claim they reach over 90% of the population, but their networks only reach less than 30% of the continent. Just a go few kilometres off the Kings Highway and you’re completely isolated from the modern digital world.”
The country’s energy grid is also frequently disrupted by extreme weather events like floods and bushfires, leaving affected communities disconnected at a time when they’re most vulnerable. And in defence and emergency services – where communication is the difference between a successful operation and a catastrophic one – that vulnerability can quickly become a matter of life and death.
It’s this connectivity gap Cognitive Advantage aims to bridge across defence, public safety, and disaster relief.
After leaving the Royal Australian Air Force, Charles wanted to address a critical vulnerability: the country’s reliance on centralised digital infrastructure for government and for essential services. But distributed computing requires strong connectivity – which proved to be the first problem he needed to solve.
“We needed a way to provide connectivity, power, and environmental protection to edge servers that might be deployed in very isolated locations. What started out as just a way to demonstrate our software turned into a successful product in its own right. You could say we accidentally became a hardware business,” Charles says.
Edge Spark® Connect™, the company’s flagship product, is rapidly deployable, enabling people to operate in remote, hostile, and dynamic environments at the press of a button.
“Our products are all compact and lightweight, and they’re modular like Lego bricks. You just grab a few and go, take them to a remote area, and you can have a complete private network with its own power grid set up within five minutes.”
It’s a critical enabler, Charles says, similar to oxygen. “You don’t think about it, but you can’t live without it.”
Edge Spark allows defence personnel to run drone and counter-drone operations through one technology and receive real-time digital updates anywhere. More than 100 units are currently in use by the Australian Defence Force. Disaster relief organisations can maintain frontline communications and get communities back online within minutes. For emergency services, the technology enables live video streaming, sensor feed relay and sharing mission-critical data in chaotic environments.
Through his military career, Charles gained a first-hand understanding of how critical connectivity is for national security and disaster relief. But to develop a solution, he needed a space to test and learn, collaborate and grow.
“I saw a sign on the street that UNSW was building an industry collaboration hub. I’m an alumnus, so I reached out to the team, and the rest is history,” Charles recalls.
UNSW Launch is a collaborative ecosystem that brings together industry, government and university to grow innovation and capability in defence and security. Across two locations in Canberra, the hub has curated and nurtured more than a dozen UNSW spin-offs, SMEs and start-ups, including Cognitive Advantage, to develop innovations and build sovereign capability.
“Launch addresses challenges that hinder translation of emerging technologies into operational capability, by creating a curated, secure space for industry, researchers and students co-locate and collaborate,” explains Akeel Feroz, Manager, Launch Partnerships and Innovation at UNSW Canberra.
For Charles, finding a space that strongly aligned with his focus on defence, research and innovation was critical. UNSW Launch ticked all the boxes.
He says being a part of the Launch ecosystem has been critical to his success – from providing his company with a flexible place to live and grow to helping him develop critical connections and relationships.
“The clout of an institution like UNSW Canberra means we got in front of ministers and other influential people through showcase events. It brought massive intangible value. The hub also allowed us to build a professional support network which is so incredibly beneficial for growing our business.”
It isn’t only business connections that make UNSW Launch invaluable for start-ups like Cognitive Advantage.
“Launch also connects industry partners with students, researchers and targeted education programs, aligning talent development directly with capability needs,” Feroz says.
Today, Cognitive Advantage has 16 staff across five functional teams, with offices in Canberra and Queensland. Finding and developing the right talent is central to the company’s future.
“We need workplace-ready talent. People with a growth mindset who understand people. But you don't come out of university ready to be an independent set-and-forget engineer. It takes a year or two of mentoring and support.”
For recent UNSW Engineering graduate, Tanmeet Sachdeva, that mentoring proved to be a career-defining turning point. Through UNSW Employability – a suite of programs connecting students with industry – Tanmeet developed leadership skills and gained industry experience. But it was the Career Discovery Mentoring Program that proved to be a catalyst for his career. He was paired with Windsor.
“I told Charles I was looking for an internship for my industry training, and he suggested I do it at Cognitive Advantage,” Tanmeet recalls.
He spent his summer break in Canberra designing and developing products, working with software-defined radios and systems, and getting involved in the early design decisions – including field testing and live demonstrations. He says the experience was invaluable.
“Once you know you can contribute to a real business, your confidence grows. The internship and UNSW Employability’s programs made me realise I have something to offer,” Tanmeet says.
After his placement ended, he continued with the team on a casual basis. When he graduated, Charles brought him on full-time as a Graduate Engineer.
“We started training Tanmeet halfway through his degree and gave him some real engineering work skills as he was finishing up his degree. He's curious, wants to learn, and he’s a strong contributor to the development team,” Charles explains.
Start-ups like Cognitive Advantage are critical to strengthening Australia’s capability in areas like national security, societal resilience and sovereign capability. In late 2025, the company was awarded a $6.6million Defence contract to deploy around 50 Edge Spark® systems to demonstrate next-generation wireless networking and edge computing capabilities in an operational environment. It’s a remarkable trajectory for a small business that began with a single desk at the UNSW Launch Hub seven years ago. A milestone that signals not only commercial success but also proves that Australian start-ups can compete at the highest level.
It also validates that UNSW Launch is doing what it was designed to do: take promising ideas and give them the conditions to become operational reality.
“Being able to scale within that university co-working space is incredibly valuable. UNSW Canberra has been very supportive in getting us to where we are today, and especially on the R&D side of things,” Charles says.
For his team, this is just the beginning. Australia's connectivity gap is vast, the threats to its digital infrastructure are growing, and the demand for sovereign, off-grid solutions has never been greater. And Cognitive Advantage – and the ecosystem that helped build it – is ready.
This article was brought to you by UNSW Employability.