Alumni Stories
Sleep, exercise, and feel better thanks to a UC alumnus' apps
If you’ve ever used an Apple Watch app that tracks your sleep, heart rate or overall health, there’s a good chance it was developed by 91Porn alumnus Todd Ryall and his team at .
Australian-based technology company Tantsissa develops Apple Watch apps for health and fitness. Its apps , , and have fast become some of the most downloaded in the App Store – and have led to Todd being named as one of The Australian’s .
Before he was Director of Tantsissa, Todd was just a boy from Leeton, NSW, where he grew up playing, living, and breathing sport. Back then, he was interested in turning his love for sport into a career.
“In the early days we were just like a lot of country kids. We didn’t think too much about the future, but thought more about ‘how can we just play sport and have a good time with our friends?’” Todd says.
When Todd moved to Goulburn to board at a local high school, he also began looking into study options.
While there were a range of attractive sport-related degrees offered at UC, after weighing up his options, Todd decided to undertake a Bachelor of Information Management, which he felt would provide a diverse technical skillset, that he could apply to any number of the broad career pathways he was interested in.
The option to study at a university close to home was also a major drawcard.
“There was always good representation of those from Leeton and the Riverina at UC. We knew we weren’t too far from home, and if you did want to go back for a weekend, it was only a three- or four-hour drive away,” Todd says.
After graduation, Todd spent a few years travelling, while working in the software industry in Europe.
Eventually, he settled back in Canberra where he worked at the Australian Sports Commission in innovation, research and development until 2019, when he joined the small but dedicated team at Tantsissa.
“HeartWatch was the first app Tantsissa created – and it was very much one of the first players on the scene when the Apple Watch first came out,” Todd says.
“As soon as our company founder, David Walsh, saw the Apple Watch come out, he created HeartWatch, an app which enables users to track their heart rate and which can catch abnormalities,” Todd says.
“It’s actually saved some lives – there was a big story in the New York Times about how HeartWatch saved a man’s life – the app went global from there.”
Global is an understatement: Tantsissa apps are now available in over 160 countries and come in 15 languages. The company’s second major project, Autosleep, was the first app for sleep tracking, and is ranked highly around the world.
Tantsissa’s latest app, Eclipse Yourself, has followed in the footsteps of its older siblings, by making waves in the elite sporting realm. The app, which tracks the activity, recovery and match-readiness of users, has been picked up by organisations like Cricket Australia and the Adelaide Crows for their athletes.
“It’s all about keeping your body in balance and not getting so caught up in health statistics,” Todd says.
“The evolution of Eclipse Yourself is the big focus for us over the next year or two.”
Helping app users maintain that balance is the long-term goal for Tantsissa, and Todd says it’s rewarding to know he’s playing a part in the health and wellbeing of their users.
“We recieve a lot of thank-you messages from people, and hear their stories of how the apps picked up on a major health concern – that’s why we invented these apps in the first place,” he says.
For a company with only three employees, Tantsissa is making leaps and bounds on the world stage – and with Todd at the helm as Director, their future is bright.
Not bad for a boy from Leeton.
Words by Elly Mackay, photos supplied.