Students look to the future with MYOB
5th July, 2016
Virtual reality recruitment testing, embeddable personnel management devices, annotated employee registries, and an intuitive business task manager are just some of the innovative solutions New Zealand’s best IT and business students are creating to optimise everyday business tasks.
At the MYOB National IT Challenge in Auckland this weekend student teams from universities around the country presented their solutions and business plans to a panel of expert judges from leading accounting software provider MYOB and online transportation network company Uber.
MYOB General Manager Engineering and Experience Adam Ferguson says the judges were very impressed with the calibre of solutions that were presented.
“The dynamic nature of technology means it is important to always look to the future and utilise cutting-edge tools when creating solutions. The students that presented in the MYOB IT Challenge have applied their knowledge and skills to build a range of creative and useful tools to help businesses succeed.”
The two-day national competition, run in conjunction with the University of Auckland’s Management Consulting Club, was split into two rounds.
Round one on Friday saw teams from the University of Auckland, University of Waikato, University of Canterbury and Victoria University of Wellington pitch their client problem, summary of the solution and the business implementation to the judges at the MYOB offices in Auckland. In round two held at the University of Auckland Business School the following day, the four top teams took the feedback from round one and presented the prototype that they built.
The winning team, from Victoria University, created a cloud-based two-way human resources engagement solution designed to simplify and optimise the employee experience working with their employers. The solution, which integrates biometric security and annotated customer support, allows employee information to be centralised and carried over between employers as needed.
“This team showed they really understood the issues that employees often face, and used emerging technologies to build a truly creative solution,” says Mr Ferguson.
The spokesperson for the winning team Liam Dennis, says that the MYOB IT Challenge really helped them apply what they are learning in their classes to a real-life situation.
“By taking part it boosted our ability to work as a team while challenging us to understand all facets of a business.
“One key thing we learnt through the competition was that focusing on people, rather than just the technology, helps us create a more holistic solution,” he says.
Having grown from an Auckland event last year to nationwide in 2016, Mr Ferguson says that MYOB looks forward to continuing to host the challenge in subsequent years.
“As an industry it essential that we continue to encourage the fresh thinking of tomorrow. The challenge not only gives students a taste of what lies ahead of them after graduating, but fosters the kind of entrepreneurial thinking that will have a role in shaping how we do business in the future,” he says.