Award winning computer software applications are being distributed throughout Asia by developer Mr Daniel Chun, a Charles Sturt University (CSU) graduate with a passion for Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

 

A Hong Kong resident, Mr Chun is a graduate of CSU’s Master of Information Technology, completing the degree as a part-time student with CSU's Hong Kong partner institute HKUSPACE within 12 months, six months ahead of his peers.

 

The project he submitted as part of his university project work not only gained a distinction grade, but was later adopted as the research framework and business model he published academically. From there, a business was formed and incubated with the Hong Kong government's support through the company HK Cyberport.

 

“I was living in Canada four years ago,” explains Mr Chun, “and while I was there I noticed a particular problem in small business and education centres. They were having difficulties handling bookings, communications and marketing due to restrictions in resources and experience. As an entrepreneur and an ICT professional, I could see that an efficient ICT system built into both internet and mobile applications would eventually make a profound impact.  I proposed this conceptual project to the supervisor and he welcomed the proposal and provided me key insights as to how to approach the issue.”

 

Mr Chun named his application ClassBooking, which is now hailed as a premium tuition and activities management system used to help parents, learning centres, tutors, instructors and students to efficiently manage their digital relationships.

“While I was completing the project as part of the Master of Information Technology coursework, I realised this could become a real business, and having the project go through the test and validation with academic rigour was important. If the project was not feasible, and did not receive above average appraisal, I would not have pursued it as a real business.”

 

Having distributed ClassBooking in Hong Kong, Mr Chun, 45, and his business Art Group Limited have received several awards for their work including the prestigious Red Herring Asia 100 Innovative Startup Award 2010 in celebration of the company’s innovative achievements as a start-up enterprise.

 

The Red Herring's Top 100 Asia list has become a mark of distinction for identifying promising new companies and entrepreneurs.  Red Herring editors were among the first to recognise that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, and eBay would change the way we live and work.

“The Red Herring Asia 100 Startup Award is recognition of our team’s concerted effort in creating a blue ocean service in the crowded market of web and mobile applications.  We are hoping to be able to take this recognition to start offering our services in South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand.”

 

Mr Chun believes his studies contributed significantly to making this success happen.

“The Charles Sturt University Master of Information Technology degree was a timely renewal for me after receiving my first degree in computer science 20 years ago,” Mr Chun said. “The curriculum was well structured to place strong emphasis on IT project management, ethics and critical literature review at a Master degree level. This has helped me a lot in gaining a higher level and strategic view of the use of ICT in workplace, business, and in my case entrepreneurial startup in ICT.”

 

Although Mr Chun is pleased with his success, convincing customers to adopt the application isn’t without its challenges.

 

“The biggest challenge we had was to educate our stakeholders and business customers to have a holistic view of the capability of the ClassBooking system and, for small business owners, sometimes their focus is not necessarily aligned and it will take some time for them to be convinced.”  

With business increasing in other parts of the world, and the coordination of pilot testing the ClassBooking applications in Malaysia/Indonesia/Singapore, Mr Chun still finds time to work as a part-time instructor for some of the short courses offered by HKUSPACE. CSU recently offered Mr Chun a PhD studentship with the Flexible Learning Institute to pursue his interests in Mobile Learning and Mr Chun recommends enhanced learning to anyone looking for a new challenge.

 

“The Master of Information Technology at Charles Sturt University is very practical for existing IT practitioners to renew their knowledge and credentials,” Mr Chun says. “The curriculum is fairly flexible and is accredited by the Australia Computer Society and the British Computer Society. I was able to upgrade my associate membership in the Associate Members for Australia Computer Society (AACS) and Member for Australia Computer Society (MACS), and to gain full membership of British Computer Society (MBCS).