By day Kelwyn Graham keeps QUT's student printing system running smoothly, but in the wee small hours of the morning you'll find him moonlighting as a games and app developer.
It's a hobby that has paid off this year - last month the QUT staff member won $10,000 in a Brisbane City Council app development competition, thanks to his new iPhone/iPad app that helps people with disabilities navigate Brisbane's CBD.
In addition to his Brisbane Access Map, Kelwyn also designed and entered another app called Artwork Hunter, which shows the locations of public artworks across the city and provides quirky information on their origins.
Kelwyn also develops games and his debut game app, Pipe Attack! (a water flow game), has had 47,000 downloads in 18 months.
"It's not Angry Birds but it makes a bit of pocket money," he said.
"People have downloaded it all over the world but the top six countries are the USA, China, Germany, the UK, Taiwan and Australia.
"It was free to start with and I had 20,000 downloads in the first three days. Then I thought maybe I should start charging for it (99 cents)!"
The Brisbane Access Map and Artwork Hunter apps are both free and can be downloaded from iTunes.
Kelwyn said the datasets required to create the apps for the hack::Brisbane competition were provided by Brisbane City Council from their online Brisbane Datastore. The competition was modelled on a similar contest in New York City.
"Together I probably spent 40 or 50 hours on them over four months," Kelwyn said.
"It was great to win ... I'm hoping to put some of the money toward a new laptop to do more development and investigate Android options."
About 500 people spread across 40 countries have downloaded the Brisbane Access Map in the past two months, with another 60 downloading Artwork Hunter so far.
The access map includes information on footpath gradients and facilities such as seating, accessible toilets and accessible transport around the city heart.
"I've also tried to make it accessible for users with limited fine motor skills," Kelwyn said. "It also has large icons for people with visual impairments and, to the best of my ability, is compatible with the Apple screen reader."
Kelwyn has worked for QUT Printing Services for five years and looks after the student printing system and its servers.
Media contact: Mechelle McMahon, 07 3138 9449 or media@qut.edu.au
