Paul Dechering left and Anthony Ham with students visiting the Alpha Domus vineyard.

EIT degree students are applying their IT learning to developing software to help manage Alpha Domus’s vineyard.

Nine Bachelor of Computing Systems students are working in two teams to cover different aspects of the software application.

Anthony Ham, the Hawke’s Bay-based solutions architect and director of Integral who initiated the project, says the application may be developed further if the students produce useful results.

Anthony has been familiarising the final year students with Magic, an application development platform used by Integral in developing software programs for New Zealand and overseas clients.

To this end, Anthony – who has a Bachelor of Technology and MBA and was formerly managing director of Alpha Domus –spent two hours a week over three months working with students on the degree’s Business

Application Programming course.

EIT lecturer Paul Dechering, who runs the course, says it is aimed at building handson skills and so lends itself to collaborative ventures with industry.

“Students need a sense of what’s happening in the outside world to prepare them for employment. We can use industry-based case studies to simulate situations to show them what they should expect when they start work, but this is not the same as the authentic experience where a series of events has real-life outcomes.”
For Integral, the liaison with EIT is also a means for securing talented developers already familiar with the Magic methodology. Magic Software Enterprises have provided development licences worth about $100,000 to make the exercise possible.

Head of EIT’s School of Computing Steve Corich says the partnership benefits the company while providing students with realworld experience.

Integral’s partnership with EIT continues to evolve, with the company looking to provide up to two student internships and Anthony scoping a further project to offer students next year.