Otago University student Dirk Verboom came up with a scheme to allow people to give to charity while shopping online.
As part of the 2012 Microsoft Imagine Cup, Mr Verboom and his Team Zooks developed Change for Charity.
As the consumer purchased goods or services online, they had the option to round up their purchase to the nearest 10c for charity.
Not only would the service give consumers peace of mind of the legitimacy of online stores, but also of the goodwill of the stores by simply being associated with Change for Charity.
Team Zooks, comprising Mr Verboom, Marjis Alwash, Justin Stubbs and Mostasha Alwash, made the final 17 teams for the Imagine Cup held in Auckland two weeks ago.
Mr Verboom told the Otago Daily Times the idea for Change for Charity was hatched a couple of months before teams had to submit their ideas to Microsoft.
"I thought we would see what we can do with this."
He went to Auckland for the first presentation and found two other Otago students to join the team. On the first day back at university this year, the final team member joined up.
As part of the cup competition, Microsoft supplies most resources, including a Microsoft representative and an industry mentor.
The industry mentor identified that the project Mr Verboom had in mind was far too big to complete in time and helped the team reduce it to a more manageable size.
"Once we figured that out, we documented what needed to be done.
"By doing that, we figured out what we wanted to do with the smaller project and started building it."
The team gave itself plenty of time to build the working model through Windows phones, changing it to suit as required, he said.
The aim was to have a project that was not too complex. Mr Verboom has an undergraduate degree in information science and his postgraduate degree will be in entrepreneurship, a good mix of skills for the project, he believes.
Two of his team-mates are software engineers and one is studying international business.
"We are a good mix with a good set of skills," Mr Verboom said.
While feeling proud at getting to the final 17 of the cup competition, the team could not believe the level of competition they found in Auckland.
AUT provided "amazing support" for its teams, including graphic designers.
"That's pretty awesome and a good environment for them to work in ... We didn't expect that level of competition."
But Mr Verboom was not about to let his idea die at the first hurdle.
He was interested in social entrepreneurship and was planning to undertake market research into how the Change for Charity idea could be adopted by corporates.
