Gotta catch 'em all! Symbio climbs into tech sector with animal app

Symbio Wildlife Park has launched a new app that hopes to ride on the back of Pokemon GO to global popularity. 

The new augmented reality (AR) educational game for ages 5 to 12 follows a wild 2025 for the Helensburgh zoo, which won three trophies  at the Illawarra Business Awards, launched a conservation charity arm and partnered with scientists and coalminers in research. 

The app is called KoalAR – pronounced Ko-ah-lar – a nod to the iconic marsupial on Symbio’s logo. It will be offered free to NSW primary schools this year with the aim of making learning fun.

Symbio business development and innovation manager Kevin Fallon said he wanted to change how conservation was being taught to children.

“The way wildlife and conservation has been taught in schools hasn't really changed since I was a kid – and I'm old, I'm in my 40s now,” Kevin, the driving force behind the project, said.

“I wanted to make it more relevant to the times, and make it in a way that the teachers can engage the kids outdoors whilst also familiarising themselves with technology.”

Students at Mt Kembla Public School have helped test the app, and they recently gave a demonstration, holding tablets and steering around their sports field in a happy hunt for virtual critters.

First Aussie animals, then world wildlife

KoalAR works on iOS and Android tablets, and teachers can customise lessons and set geographic boundaries to keep kids safe. Players use their tablets like a compass to track animals, listen for radar pings and move around a field to locate and learn about Australian animals, such as koalas, Tassie devils, kangaroos, emus, dingoes and snakes.

“This is the first iteration,” Kevin said. “As it gets rolled out on a larger scale, then we're going to look at expanding – so including stuff like different countries, different continents, also dinosaurs – but for now, focusing on our local Australian natives.”

App development has cost “quite a few hundreds of thousands”, Kevin said.

Funding has come from the zoo’s new charity arm, Symbio Conservation Foundation, and coalminer GM3, which took on a three-year $470,000 Symbio funding agreement after it bought Mt Kembla’s Dendrobium mine from South32 in 2024. 

Teamwork behind tech venture

Many hands helped create KoalAR. Helensburgh local Matthew Baker has been a key consultant on cloud software infrastructure, Kevin’s partner, Nathalie Simmonds, the marine biologist who founded Abyss Project’s Five Islands tours, shared scientific expertise, while the schoolchildren of Mt Kembla provided practical feedback. Thanks to them, emus made the final cut.

KoalAR’s design was influenced by Pokemon Go, the mobile app craze from 2016 that continues rake in revenue (almost US$300 million last year).

“There was that one magical summer when everyone was out in their parks again,” said Reuben Moorhouse, director of Noble Steed Games, the Sydney studio behind KoalAR. “I think that really showed what games can be in the sense of community and connection, and just getting out into the world.”

KoalAR’s GPS detects virtual animals, which kids can photograph, and includes quizzes to check their knowledge. “It blends gamification with learning and fun,” Reuben explained. 

“If you watch the kids play, you can see they love just like getting up close and looking at the details of the animals in a way that, even going to a zoo, you can't necessarily be like, ‘what does it look like behind a kangaroo’s ear?’”

Symbio is pitching the app as a way of sharing the wonders of wildlife, with publicity material stating: “For many schools, particularly those in remote or low-socioeconomic areas, excursions to see wildlife in person are increasingly limited due to rising costs of admission and transport. KoalAR provides a cost-free, inclusive alternative that brings authentic wildlife engagement directly to every schoolyard.”

‘A great relationship’ with miner

Through the years of creative development runs a three-year funding agreement.

GM3 CEO Peter Baker said the company had “a great relationship” with Symbio that began with sponsoring thermal drone studies of koalas and greater gliders on land across the Illawarra escarpment and Woronora Plateau owned by the mine.

On the surface, conservationists and coalminers make strange bedfellows, but both sides are enjoying what Peter described as a “really great” partnership. 

“I think it proves that that we can co-exist,” he said. “We get the right projects, we do the right level of funding, and we can look after the environment and still continue mining at the same time.”

Kevin also praised their good working relationship.

“They're one of the largest landholders of untouched areas in our region,” he said. “Yes, on face value it seems counter-intuitive, but the fact that the land has not been developed, has not been cleared for farming and the wildlife that we're looking to protect is on there – having their support to be able to drive tangible conservation initiatives, both locally and, in this case, with the app abroad … we're all for it. 

“The good thing about the guys at GM3, they're invested… They're not just allocating funds and walking away. They've been with every project from the outset, but they're literally walking with us and talking the talk. 

“So that, to me, has been invaluable.

“Working with uni too, we're actually also being able to link science, conservation and industry to be able to create collaborative partnerships to drive long-term species management.”

Next up: A wildlife hospital

Symbio’s fledgling conservation charity is headed by long-time employee Jarrad Prangell, 2018’s Australasian Zookeeper of the Year, and the not-for-profit venture is another expanding project in 2026.

Kevin said: “We’re in the feasibility study phase currently around the development of a Koala and Wildlife Hospital up at Symbio as part of the Symbio Conservation Foundation, which is first and foremost going to be looking at doing conservation initiatives locally endemic to our region.

“We’re already working with koalas, greater gliders, green and golden bell frogs, stuttering frogs, but also a bit further abroad, with the bell and snapping turtle.”

While tourism was one of the hardest hit sectors during the pandemic, the family-owned Helensburgh zoo – led by award-winning businessman Matt Radnidge – has proved resilient.

“We're growing year on year,” Kevin said. “We're on track for about 240,000 [visitors in 2025], which is absolutely amazing. To think that a decade ago, we were around 70,000.

“So despite Covid, we've seen astronomical growth. We have a lot of support locally, and international visitation has started picking up.”

Money for critters and conservation

Funding support for the zoo has also come from the NSW government (which put a $150,000 grant towards a new penguin enclosure in 2022), Wollongong City Council and BlueScope, which have both allocated land for koala feed-tree plantations.

Last year, Symbio also received $220,000 from US miner Peabody, owner of Helensburgh’s Metropolitan coalmine, to fund a breeding and reintroduction program for the endangered southern stuttering frog in the Royal National Park. 

Symbio’s new not-for-profit arm, which achieved deductible gift recipient (DGR) status in 2025, is run from the same offices as the Helensburgh zoo, and zoo-goers will make a contribution simply by visiting. 

“Symbio is donating $1 for every visitor into the Conservation Foundation,” Kevin said.

The KoalAR app will be free to schools in 2025, but even when subscription fees start, Kevin wants it known the goal is not a financial return. “It's not being commercialised. It is going straight back into a not-for-profit [the Symbio Conservation Foundation].

“Profits from this will only ever be used for conservation initiatives.”