THE CHALLENGE

The advantage of a digital reporting channel is the ability to create a community of users that are committed to the biosecurity of New Zealand. Hence, the tool Scion wanted had the objective of creating a dialogue with users using alerts, news, and commentary that builds rapport amongst people with a common interest of protecting New Zealand.

Scion engaged with Cucumber to develop a technology solution that allows:

• Participants to record an observation of what they believe to be a potential biosecurity threat.

  
  

• Industries to support biosecurity surveillance via intermediaries that will assist in the identification of potential biosecurity threats.

  
  

• Involvement with the iNaturalist NZ community in the public identification of pests that are already present in New Zealand, e.g., weeds.

  
  

• Standardisation of data collection to allow consumption of raw data by third parties, e.g., MPI or Regional Councils.

  
  

• Facilitation of communication between parties, e.g., comments, notifications and alerts.

There are two broad categories of users that will interact with the solution:

1. General public: These are general members of the public that do not associate with a particular primary sector.

   
   

2. Sectors groups: These are either a primary sector, e.g., forestry, or the regional councils who have a specific interest in a particular ‘weed’.
   

OUR APPROACH

Cucumber’s solution for the Scion Biosecurity Surveillance application contained the following features:

• Content management system with multi-lingual support, a rich user interface, flexible content model and the ability to publish to web and offline channels

  
  

• Full offline functionality for the mobile application

  
  

• Autonomous and automatic synchronization between the mobile devices and the master database.

  
  

• Security with best practice security principles

Using an agile process Cucumber were able to deliver functionality quickly to get key stakeholder feedback and allow for change within the defined project timelines and budget.