How would vocational training work if it was set up for students, not the industry?

That's what 29-year-old Adam Brimo​ pondered as he read story after story of dodgy private providers ripping off students, signing them up to courses they would never complete, saddling them with mountains of debt, and skimming millions in taxpayer dollars for themselves.

With a history of successful consumer activism - at 23 he built the website Vodafail - and a very millennial mix of entrepreneurial ambition and social idealism, Brimo was sure there was a better way.

The Sydney entrepreneur came up with an Australian first which could send a chill wind through the private vocational sector, already reeling from the overhaul announced by federal education minister Simon Birmingham this month.