In 2019 software developer Braeden Dillon began working part-time for Entuitive to complete his final year project for Ara Institute of Canterbury. Datanest cofounder, Tom Davies, pitched Braeden a project where he would work with software that could automatically compare site soil sample results to various national and international environmental standards. Called Evalu8, many had attempted to complete the software, but no one had been successful. Braeden had the following to say about his experience:

“Ara helped develop my interest in software development and gave me a way to understand how to manage a project and workload, the practical aspects of work. Working at Entuitive on my first official project in the industry was so exciting. I was able to take the skills I learnt at Ara and put them to work, creating something that would actually be used and helpful.”

Fast forward two weeks, Braeden had completed a full UI mock-up of Evalu8, a dramatic advance that drove excitement at the Entuitive office. Finally, people could see the potential of Evalu8. As a happy consequence, Braeden’s value was also visible, and he was offered a full-time role at Entuitive two weeks into his project and before completing his final semester. 

Working alongside Tom and other environmental professionals, Evalu8 grew into a specialised software with obvious potential benefits for the industry. The first year of launch saw many clients, yet the Entuitive team believed its potential was more significant.

“It started off as such a small idea and grew into a full-time project.”

To support the development of Evalu8, Braeden conceptually developed software that could map specific data points, sample points and site boundaries. As this idea grew, Braeden designed ways to simplify and create an easy to use software to encapsulate all aspects of data gathering, analysis and visualisation- datanest was born.

“Datanest makes people’s lives a hell of a lot easier. It reduces how many people need to work on a project to get some of the most basic things done. Communication is going towards visual data. With datanest, you can describe what you’ve drawn and go from a boring, old written report to something deeper, better quality in no time.”

Braeden continues to develop datanest to become a more robust software every day. This development was in line with what he expected from a career as a software developer.

“It’s cool how creative you can be when designing software. You own something from its idea to design through to implementation. There’s full theory development; you go from nothing to something based on one idea. At Entuitive, there’s flat level management and so much flexibility to test your ideas and expand.”