Ezidebit co-founder Michael Dempsey has been named winner of the Outstanding Alumni Award for the QUT Science and Engineering Faculty at a ceremony in Brisbane today.
The annual QUT Outstanding Alumni Awards recognise outstanding graduates of the university (and predecessor institutions), who have displayed exceptional professional, academic or research achievements and contributions to the community.
Starting his career as a quarry engineer, Mr Dempsey soon realised he has an interest in developing computer systems and was able to create a program that reduced an administrative task from two days to 15 minutes.
He continued his passion for computer programming while working as a plant engineer at Leightons Contractors, and after a two-day course developed a program that provided access to a wealth of information about the plant and machinery on-site.
With a career spanning real estate, childcare and engineering, Mr Dempsey has used his programming skills to become an entrepreneur.
While building two childcare centres in Brisbane with his partner, he soon realised the financial cost of fees in arrears, so he co-founded Ezidebit. This idea had a significant impact on their childcare businesses, with 90 per cent of fees paid on time.
In 2014 Mr Dempsey sold Ezidebit for $305 million, which showed his business acumen as one of Queensland’s leading entrepreneurs.
Mr Dempsey continues to pursue a number of business interests as the co-owner of the Normanby hotel, director of Pipeline Capital, the co-owner of OntheHouse real estate website and cloud based property management software company, Console.
Mr Dempsey graduated from QUT with a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) in 1987.
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