How many of this year's crop of year 12 students will turn their minds to technology careers when they finish schoolies celebrations this month?

Australia's information and communications technology graduate numbers have halved in the past decade. Now Australia's research agency NICTA hopes to reverse the decline with the national rollout of an initiative that has helped boost enrolments by 50 per cent in Queensland.

NICTA is hoping to awaken technology career aspirations in children as young as 10 or 11.

Launched in 2007 by Simon Kaplan, former dean of science and technology at Queensland University of Technology, the program known as GroupX uses extracurricular projects and workshops to spark interest in ICT careers among the under-15s.

Backed by a consortium of government agencies, universities, industry associations and vendors, GroupX could take credit for Queensland enrolment numbers that have defied the gloomy national trend, said Mr Kaplan, who now runs NICTA's Queensland lab.