monash alumni

IT graduate wins 2002 Pearcey Award

Jonathan Zufi (BComp(Hons) 1994) is the winner of the 2002 Victorian Pearcey Award for Young Achievers. The award is given annually to a person early in his or her IT career who has demonstrated innovative and pioneering achievement and contribution to research and development.

A self-confessed "propeller-head", 31 year-old Zufi was acknowledged by the selection panel as a young achiever with an adventurous spirit who has taken risks to get his company off the ground. He was described by Chairman of the selection panel, Rick Harvey, as "pioneering, visionary and successful".

Zufi wrote a video store customer management system in Pascal as part of his HSC studies in 1988. He went onto study for a bachelor of applied science with honours in robotics and digital technology at Monash University.

Since leaving Monash Zufi has worked on development projects in such fields as virtual reality, global positioning systems, content management and most recently, a point-of-sale system for Coles supermarket.

"I've always wanted to work with the cutting edge of technology but working in away that actually gets technology into people's hands so they can use it," Zufi says.

"Probably the most satisfying part of (the Coles project) was working on a project that was rolled out to 1800 stores across Australia. I can look at the screen in a store and say 'That's what I did; that's my code in there,'" he said.