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The co-founder and CEO of UndaTech, Emily Pyke, has been awarded the 2025 Entrepreneur of the Year award at the Prime Minister’s Veteran Employment Awards.
UndaTech is redefining the standards of safety and comfort for defence force members, emergency services personnel, and other high-risk industries through creating advanced undergarments.
The products use fire-safe and ergonomic materials to create the undergarments, focused on solving the issues posed by current garments, such as the incompatibility of uniforms with certain gear, lack of design consideration for extreme conditions, and a lack of consideration for female undergarment specificities.
Pyke has previously served in the Royal Australian Navy as a petty officer and has recognised the shortcomings of the existing personal protective equipment (PPE), thus leading to the innovation of UndaTech.
“With 13 years of service as a petty officer and extensive operational experience, I identified critical gaps in personal protective ensemble, particularly for women,” she said.
“In addition to attending the recent Indo-Pacific International Maritime Expo, we’ve identified major interest in our range from a range of clients including overseas defence distributors, first responders, high-risk industries and defence forces.”
UndaTech is one of the first companies worldwide to develop undergarments that address current failings and integrate PPE effectively.
Winning the 2024 Vogue Codes Future Innovators Awards, Pyke explained some of the missing elements of existing undergarments for women in high-risk, front-line workers.
“The bras we wear don’t actually meet the requirements for being fire-safe or made from 100 per cent natural fibres without hazardous materials such as wire, foam and elastic. But if you take away those things, you have no supportive structure in a bra. So what are we supposed to wear under body armour or firefighting equipment or even an everyday uniform?” she told Vogue.
“It's something you can’t believe no one has done yet. But it’s another example of male-dominated workforces, where these things haven’t been thought of because no one’s been in the mind of a woman.”
UndaTech has conducted trials with the Australian Defence Force and is currently being supplied to women in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Pyke currently sits on the Defence Trailblazer Governing Board as well as the NSW Women in Defence Association Advisory Board.
