Sparx Systems Award 2022 - Announcement and Presentation

Sparx Systems has enjoyed a long association with Federation University, with many staff having once worked and studied at Federation University. Federation University Australia was formed when the former University of Ballarat and the Gippsland Campus of Monash University were amalgamated.

For more information, please refer to the University website: https://federation.edu.au/

Award Winner

The Student Awards Ceremony was held on Thursday the 8th of September 2022 on behalf of the Institute of Innovation, Science and Sustainability.
The 2022 Sparx Systems award winner is Zac (Zhi Zao) ONG - pictured below. Zac is a Bachelor of IT (Professional Practice) Student.

The award was presented by Sparx Systems Communications Manager, Mr Scott Hebbard.

Award Recipient Information

Zac (Zhi Zao) ONG was top of the class in ITECH3109 Data Structures and Algorithms, and ITECH3108 Dynamic Web Development. He was a very good scrum master in his capstone project team and was a leader in development and processes, for example he set up very good workflow for the project team using Github and Vercel with continuous integration. His team delivered an excellent outcome to their client. He interned at IBM where he worked an on internal project developing an ‘Executive Dashboard’ for senior management. This involved both the front end and back-end development of the dashboard which is a web-based tool. The dashboard is used by their senior management today to report on quite a large range metrics within the organisation. Zac was highly praised for his work on this dashboard, the data that can be retrieved as well as the user interface that is very clear, clean and professional. 

The School of Science, Engineering and Information Technology at Federation University presents an annual Information Technology Student Awards Presentation.

The Sparx Systems 2020 award was presented to Thommas Bannister.

The Sparx Systems award was established for a student that displays academic excellence in their degree.  On recieving the award, Tom commented "Learning at Federation University was one of the best experiences of my life. All of the lecturers were very kind and cared immensely about ensuring that their students were able to achieve their maximum potential and some of the friendships I made there will last the rest of my life. Over the course of my undergraduate, I studied a wide array of subjects including Artificial Intelligence, Security, Programming/Software Engineering, Databases, Networks, etc and got to be the project manager for a full year project that involved designing a Smart Bin system for Federation University campuses. My favourite area of ICT is programming/software engineering as it gives me an huge amount of creativity and allows me to continually challenge myself to design better systems and solutions to problems."

Sparx Systems likes to encourage Federation University students to achieve world class results. Sparx Systems has a strong association with Federation University with many staff having once worked and studied at Federation University.

2019 Sparx Systems Award at Federation University

Federation University, School of Science, Engineering and Information Technology holds an annual student awards ceremony, in which industry partners play a crucial role in supporting and encouraging our students to achieve greatness in their desired field.

Scott Hebbard, Sparx Systems Communications Manager recently had the pleasure of presenting the Sparx Systems award at a Federation University Student awards ceremony. The Sparx Systems Award in 2019 was presented to Drew McMahon.

Drew regularly used Enterprise Architect throughout his degree and he indicated “As a programmer and designer, I find the tool comprehensive and invaluable, and I'm thrilled to have continued access with my own licence. I'm grateful that Sparx Systems would support Federation University and the School of Science, Engineering, and Information Technology.”

Sparx Systems would like to congratulate Drew on his hard work and dedication to his studies.

Information about the Award recipient:

Drew has achieved excellent results throughout his degree and his dedication, perseverance and commitment to excellence were an inspiration to us all.

He has the top grade point average of 7 and an average final result of 94.24% across all his courses. He is easy to work with and shows maturity in his organisational skills and attention to understanding the latest technology.

Drew has embraced opportunities to extend his knowledge beyond his degree studies, for example attending an intensive bootcamp training course in Salesforce development during the lecture break in 2018.

This was undertaken during Drew’s final semester of study when he was very busy with finalising his internship with IBM and completing his final year project.

Drew is a very worthy recipient of this award and an exemplar of an upcoming IT professional.