Congratulations Team SOAK!

Friday, 11 July 2008

SOAK, a virtual water monitoring system takes out international acclaim.

11 July 2008

Yesterday, Readify’s very own David Burela, along with fellow team members Dimaz Pramudya, Ed Hooper and Long Zheng, known as Team SOAK, took out the dream prize for any aspiring young technologist – Microsoft’s internationally acclaimed Imagine Cup 2008. It was an outstanding achievement for the team, considering this year’s competition attracted more than 200,000 students across 100 countries.

David is a well respected and experienced Senior Developer working for Readify, a professional services firm offering technical development consulting and training around Microsoft enterprise and developer technologies. Graeme Strange, CEO of Readify, took his hat off to David and commented on behalf of all Readify employees.

“This is an incredible achievement for David, and everyone at Readify instinctively knew he was capable of winning. David’s talent and dedication in developing technologies that mix business requirements into unique product ideas, such as SOAK, is simply second to none. Congratulations mate, we’re all so happy for you and knew you could do it!” says Graeme Strange, Readify’s CEO.

David and his fellow team members developed a unique software-based solution designed to help farmers measure and control their water usage. In the development of the software, David took on the role of system architect and programmer. The program, appropriately labeled ‘SOAK’ (Smart Operational Agriculture Toolkit), provides farmers with a virtual image of their farms and allows them to calculate how much water is actually available for use on their properties.

“SOAK allows farmers to measure how much water they’re using and how much they have available. The software gives farmers an accurate indication of where they most need to use their water.” says Burela.

At Readify, David has been working with Andrew Parsons, Readify’s Education Evangelist, in developing Readify’s exclusively new Pro .NET 3.5 training course. David undertook this project work alongside Andrew for a four month period, before packing his bags and heading over to Paris to represent Australia in the 2008 Imagine Cup final. Prior to this, David spent time at the Readify Development Centre, where he worked on various other projects.

This is not the first time Readify employees have competed and won the highly regarded Microsoft Imagine Cup award. Aymeric Gaurat Apelli and Francois Beaussier, who both work for Readify in Sydney, were labeled the international winners at the 2004 Imagine Cup final.

Francois comments: “Our project was a low-cost home automation platform called SmartCenter.net. The system can be used to manage domestic energy consumption, remotely monitor security, and remotely control routine household tasks such as smart heating management”.

Readify has offered internships to the top three winning Australian teams of the Imagine Cup Australia 2008 competition. A major focus for Readify is to invest in both Australian and overseas talent, by seeking out the industry’s very best technologists at all major industry events, such as Imagine Cup. Readify’s HR Manager, Toni-Anne Collins, is currently in Paris with David scoping out new talent to join the ranks at Readify in Australia and abroad.

See David Burela on "9am with David and Kim" show, Friday 25 July 2008

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