Curtin University-based start-up company Skrydata is a step closer to a full-scale push into Australia’s data quality and integrity marketplace, with almost $500,000 in Commercialisation Australia grants allowing it to conduct trials in the mining and finance market sectors.
Grants totalling more than $496,000 have been approved to provide for Skrydata to expand use of its Data Quality and Integrity (DQI) Toolkit to a major mining company and Curtin Finance and appoint experienced technology executive Mark Stevens as Managing Director.
Dr Fedja Hadzic, Curtin Research Fellow and the toolkit’s lead creator, along with colleague Dr Michael Hecker, said the work was a vital part of refining the commercial capabilities of the DQI toolkit.
“Early work done with a significant Western Australian Government department on very large databases has already shown the effectiveness of the technology for business process improvement, but expanded testing will help us validate other capabilities across a variety of industries,” Dr Hadzic said.
Skrydata’s discovery technology enables relationships to be found between data and the processes that create it. Applications include geological data analysis, mining process analysis, business process improvement and fraud detection in financial environments, as well as customer churn analysis in Telco environments.
The toolkit was a prize-winner at the 2010 Curtin University Commercial Innovation Awards and Curtin Director of IP Commercialisation, Rohan McDougall said the business case for it was strong.
“We think the DQI Toolkit’s unique capabilities could allow it to grab a significant share of the Australian data quality market. The Commercialisation Australia project provides a great base for commercial roll out of the product,” Mr McDougall said.
Skrydata’s new Managing Director, Mr Stevens, was previously CEO of Perth-based business process automation company Office Automator and Chief Strategy Officer for WatchGuard Technologies, a US public company.
Dr Hadzic and Dr Hecker were previously granted $50,000 by Commercialisation Australia to develop a business plan for the DQI Toolkit.
It is currently planned for Skrydata to complete its first fully commercial agreement with a customer by April 2014.
