Net team taps into expat brains

Paul Spence's ION has developed tests for aviation staff worldwide. Picture / Mark Mitchell

An online network set up to link information technology experts around the world has scored its first big success, allowing a widely scattered team to develop a million-dollar software project.

Based at Auckland University, the Innovators Online Network (ION) is tapping into a network of expatriate New Zealanders to team local IT brains with global expertise.

In its early stages of development, ION found kiwi Graham Elliott, who works in the United States but was able to work with a local team on a system aimed at making flying safer.

With international civil aviation rules requiring commercial pilots and air traffic controllers involved in operations worldwide to pass an English language test by 2008, the software works to eliminate language confusion as a cause of accidents.

ION project manager Paul Spence says the forum helped to assemble a team to develop new language-testing technology.

With at least 300,000 pilots and traffic controllers worldwide, he says, the scale of testing makes traditional exams impractical.

"[Elliott] said: 'I've got this great idea but I'm out of the country and I'd like to see a New Zealand company have a crack at it'," said Spence.

Speech technology company Speechlab, training provider Airways International and testing agency Aviation Services (ASL) are collaborating on the system.

"The end product is hoped to be a voice-recognition technology which can provide a quick and simple means of testing competency."

Aviation workers could sit exams in large numbers using computers anywhere in the world with results calculated on centralised servers in New Zealand.

The project group received a $5000 grant from TechNZ to perform an initial investigation and has now entered early development stages.

ASL Group chief executive and team leader for the project, Mike Lynskey, says they aim to have a finished product ready within two years. The team will initially focus on the Asian market.

He says ION is an important "think tank" for developing ideas.

"You get organisations working in quite diverse fields trying to pull together something which may be quite unique on an international basis," says Lynskey.

"New Zealand really needs that type of innovation because we still in a lot of areas rely on niche markets."

Spence says ION, born two years ago out of a study into business virtual networking, initially met resistance. But perseverance brought recognition and a $12,000 Trade and Enterprise grant.

Spence says the recognition was more valuable than the money.

"The first year was frustrating because I knew I had a brilliant idea on my hands and I was going around knocking on doors of Government departments ... I think people just didn't really grasp what we were trying to achieve."

The not-for-profit forum has almost 600 registered users.

Previous success stories include e-learning software developed by a Christchurch woman who teamed up with a management consultant with links to the health sector.

The result was a new tool for mental health service providers.

"Anything we can do to help get these people together and bounce ideas around is all success as far as I'm concerned," said Spence.