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This year, held its first Australian Make It Awards in support of Australian entrepreneurs, creators and small business owners. They Make It Awards come from  the beginning of 2003 when, President Anthony Casalena founded the company by obtaining a loan of $30,000 that was used to buy the first servers.

With the Make It Awards, we're providing a gift to our Australian business community by providing three new businesses by providing a $30,000 grant to further their goal. The award winners were picked from more than 2,500 entries, based on their business strategy, innovation, benefit for the community and branding and style. Meet Reef Design Lab, Lousy Ink, and The Difference Three mission-driven companies doing sustainable and community-focused work.

    Reef Design Lab

Reef Design Lab is a multidisciplinary design firm that designs marine habitats. The structures they design support research into the ways to repair and maintain the ecological diversity of coastal and marine environments. Reef Design Lab works with the builders, architects, government and research institutions and works with marine researchers on a range of topics, such as ecological engineering, coastal protection, marine infrastructure, and coral farming.

Reef Design Lab plans to use its grant to upgrade the technology in its own lab and speed up product development processes.

    Lousy Ink

Founded by two artists, Lousy Ink recycles printer cartridge ink to create a variety of sustainable art materials, including ink and recycled pens. The company works closely with Australian collaborators to acquire, repurpose, and reuse as well as recycle used and old cartridges inkjet. Lousy Ink's goal is to reimagine waste as an artistic resource and to help both the earth as well as the arts community by encouraging more environmentally sustainable practices in creative expression.

Lousy Ink plans to use the grant funds to create an array of colored inks, including cyan, yellow, magenta as well as black.

    The difference

The Difference was the only mobile application available in Australia that lets users collect virtual spare cash from transactions and give it away to causes that they're passionate about. The Difference utilizes technology to enable anyone be a part of sustainability through every day actions as well as microdonations.

The Difference plans to use it to broaden the technical services it offers and to help the Make Change campaign.