Zapper tracker scoops award

The Fence Detective mobile app indicates whether a fence carries an electrical pulse.

When Dan Hall reached for his cellphone to call a farmer and ask if an electric fence was switched on, he says, "it was if a light came on in my head".

At that moment a couple of years back, he got the notion of developing a mobile app which could be used to indicate if an electric fence was alive and the Fence Detective was born.

Months of hard work later and the electronic aid was on sale for $39.95 a week before Mr Hall collected the $5000 Vodafone Innovation in Technology Award during the National Fieldays at Mystery Creek.

The app is made by Mr Hall's new company, Danz Zappz, and although he says sales are slow at present he is confident they will expand as the fence warning system is sold to the world.

The success of the digital development is a change of pace for Mr Hall, 48, who lives on a four-hectare lifestyle block at Kaihu, which he planted in pine trees that are now close to harvesting.

He has been on light duties since a serious motorcycle accident about 20 years ago.

And he has a major reason for feeling a sense of accomplishment in creating a device, which warns whether wiring has an electrical pulse running through it. Before he was born, his father Ray lost an arm and received other burn injuries in an electrical accident.

"The Fence Detective is about health and safety. I'm proud of that," Mr Hall said.

After he conceived the idea of the mobile app, he searched for websites that might help him develop it. He ended up linking with the Massey University Better Solutions team, who "make entrepreneurs out of ideas".

They supported the concept and put him in touch with Muli Mobile, an Auckland firm which got a draft app working in three weeks. Vodafone commercial development head Nicole Buisson said the company was excited to be partnering with innovative business in the agricultural space.

Other Fieldays Innovation Awards winners were:
-Tru-Test Grassroots Innovation Award: Felton Industries, Ag Oxijet.
-Tru-Test Grassroots Merit: Te Pari, BCS Systems/Bachler Steel, fence step.
- Launch NZ Innovation Award: Farm Medix, Check Up mastitis diagnostic tool.
-Launch NZ Innovation Merit: Zammr Ltd, Zammr trough clip.
- International Innovation Award: Waikato Milking Systems, Centrus 84 composite platform.
- Young Innovator of the Year and James & Wells IP Service Awards: Kinneir Groube, Easy-Use feed bin wires.
- Locus Research Innovation Award: Bachler Steel, fence step.