A Global Solution

OriginsInfo Ltd was founded in the UK in 2004 by Richard Webber, originator of the Acorn and Mosaic postcode classifications systems.  His global leadership in the development of practical tools, together with substantial cross-sector experience, have built on solid research into the origin of names – hence the Origins product.

Origins has a strong academic pedigree through Richard’s leadership of the original research project at University College London, and through his more recent positions at King’s College, London and the University of Newcastle.

OriginsInfo Ltd licenses different distributors for different markets.  The distributor for Australia and New Zealand is MD&A Pty Ltd, trading as OriginsInfo.  OriginsInfo in Australia was founded in 2007 by Michael Dove, who was primarily responsible for the successful introduction of Mosaic into the Australian market.  Read more about our partners here and other global distributors of Origins here.

OriginsInfo’s mission in Australia is to support organisations who wish to create a robust evidence base of their engagement with multicultural Australia.  Central to our technology is the Origins database which associates family names and personal names with their cultural, ethnic and linguistic background.  With careful customisation of the processing to reflect Australian and New Zealand demography, Origins delivers a robust and reliable assignment of cultural codes on any list of names.

Our customers recognise, and seek to meet, the challenge of engaging effectively with all of Australia’s culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, whether they feature as customers, service users, employees or suppliers.

Customer motivations may be compliance, corporate responsibility, commercial or research – all aiming to better understand and capitalise on the skills, spending power and potential of Australia’s cultural diversity.

Origins technology enables organisations to measure, monitor and therefore manage their engagement – in real time if required – with multicultural Australia.