Monash University > News and Events > Monash Memo

New agreement provides Keytools for research

4 June 2008

From back: Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Dina Burger; Head of School of IT Dr Jacques Steyn; Pro Vice-Chancellor Monash South Africa Professor Tyrone Pretorius; and Keytools CEO Ray Delgarno.

Monash South Africa (MSA) has signed a collaborative research agreement with Keytools, one of South Africa's leading developers of mobile software technology.

The agreement was negotiated by MSA Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Dina Burger and CEO of Keytools Ray Delgarno.

Head of the School of Information Technology at MSA Dr Jacques Steyn welcomed the agreement which will give structure to an informal arrangement and provide postgraduate students the opportunity to undertake practical research.

"This agreement will allow students to work in a cutting-edge technological environment in line with the research focus of the School of IT," Dr Steyn said.

"Lecturers and students in the school will initially contribute towards new initiatives in the field of mobile-government and mobile-commerce."

Professor Burger said Monash was privileged to have a relationship with Keytools at this time in the company's development.

"We expect that agreements with other players with similar synergies will flow out of this one," Professor Burger said.

Over the past five years Keytools has invested heavily in a product development project.

Mr Delgarno said the company would soon launch the world's first "end-to-end" integrated cellular/web Rapid Application Development toolset into the global marketplace .

He said the signing of the agreement was the start of a formal cooperative research collaboration between Keytools and Monash.