Meet AccountingPod
From the Deep South to Wellingtons KFA – now that’s commitment!
Welcome AccountingPod and its co-founders to KFA! Travelling regularly from Queenstown they’ve brought ‘real business’ to the accelerator to change the game in experiential applied learning across cloud business technologies.
AccountingPod is part of a global, billion dollar opportunity to develop innovative online education technology. They’re focused on improving the business financial literacy of today’s ‘digital native’ learners and the new global wave of entrepreneurs, and we’re thrilled to have them amongst our first cohort.
Real Data and Real Business Stories
Founders, Judith Cambridge and XingDong Yan, both experienced Chartered Accountants, say their idea is simple. “Let’s take the real data and story of SME business, obfuscate and turn that into a ‘real financial learning experience’ for every student in the world. They think New Zealand is a great place to start AccountingPod because, as Judith says, “we have a huge number of successful small and medium businesses with fantastic and unique stories to share as well as leveraging off Xero’s success.” She adds that the amazing wisdom and support for tech start-ups provided by our accelerators like KFA is motivating and energising.
Get Real Experience for a Job
“Believe it or not”, says XingDong, “many of our business school grads come out with little actual applied business knowledge. So, when they front up to an interview and are asked for experience or to share their knowledge about the current business environment or technologies, sadly they fall silent.”
“This is much more common for our international students and why many will fail to get a relevant job. You’ll find these students in cafes and service stations on the minimum wage despite holding Business Masters Degrees.”
But, AccountingPod is here to change that via its innovative cloud business learning experience.
Business learns Business and Future of Work
From a broader economic perspective, Judith believes the time is ripe to do something about business financial capability in New Zealand. “With automation and offshoring affecting many entry levels, and administrative jobs, she thinks AccountingPod must grab the opportunity that cloud and big data provide to educate in new ways. “This is the future of work.”
Innovative Cash Cows
One of the best things about Judith and XingDong’s company is that they want to bring fun to business finance. When trialling AccountingPod’s concept in 2016 they set up a competition to get students to compete running virtual dairy farms wherein the winner would get paid real money based on the gross milk income of five virtual cows over the 2016-17 milking season.
The ‘Compete for Cash Cow’ contest winner was a Victoria University accounting and finance student, Rebecca Matthews. The goal was to teach students about real life dairy business while also giving them access to cloud based tools – Xero and Figured’s farm business software to be exact. Three hundred contestants participated from all over New Zealand. AccountingPod then successfully piloted with two tertiaries before applying to the KFA.
Rebecca states, “When learning new concepts at university it is often hard to recognise their value, particularly with respect to our future careers, as we’re not shown real life applications. AccountingPod compliments the material taught at university and challenges students to manipulate those theories and apply them to a real life company in a real world industry.”
Judith and XingDong have recently joined the newly formed EdTech New Zealand Board spun out of NZTech. They happily bring diversity and different perspectives to the table, Accounting Pod represents the new New Zealand. And we’re thrilled to have them on the programme with us.
Article by Kiwibank Fintech Accelerator (https://nzfintech.kiwi/2017/04/21/team-profile-accounting-pod)
