Awards toast best in digital industry
THE best digital companies and entrepreneurs in Wales have been honoured at the inaugural WalesOnline Digital Awards.
The awards, whose overall sponsor is Innovation Point, were held at the Mercure Cardiff Holland House Hotel, and attended by nearly 300 guests.
The winners, across 12 categories, include Matt Warren the chief executive of Swansea-based Veeqo, who was named Digital Entrepreneur of the Year, while his company also took the Best e-Commerce award.
Serial tech entrepreneur Simon Powell, who is chief executive of InspireTec Group, was named Digital Ambassador of the Year Award.
He has worked in the digital travel industry for more than 25 years and recently set up InspireTec group which consists of Cardiff-based Comtec, Eysys, Clarius Finance and Sequence, along with Canadian company Incentriq, and has a combined client base of more than 150 in 12 countries.
Cardiff-based Delio Wealth was named Best Digital Start Up. It helps a range of organisations and their advisers enhance their offering through connecting private deal flow with high net worth capital. Delio is working with most of the UK’s private banks as well as some of the biggest banks across Europe, and providing an underlying platform for angel networks across the UK. It recently announced it is creating 30 new jobs as it targets the Middle East and Asia.
The Best Digital Innovation award went to Wealthify, based in the capital, which combines smart technology, great design and a simple, straightforward approach to make investing easy and affordable for everyone.
Jackson Griffiths was the Young Digital Person of the Year.
The app/game developer works with Webfibre in Llantrisant and has built more than 10 apps, including Brio which monitors children and young people with epilepsy, alerting carers to increased heart rates through the night indicating a seizure.
Best Digital Marketing Communication went to Cardiff-based Blue Stag who teamed up with the Natural Environment Research Council to launch an online campaign to find a name for the UK’s new polar research vessel.
The campaign went viral when the name Boaty McBoatface was suggested and received 124,109 votes. It reached 250 million people across social media, generated 2.3 million page views in three weeks, and received more than 30,000 name submissions. The hashtag #NameOurShip was used 23 million times on Twitter and trended across the UK, USA and Australia.
The vessel was eventually named the RRS Sir David Attenborough.
Chief executive of Innovation Point, David Warrender, said: “All the finalists and winners clearly demonstrate that Wales not only have a vibrant digital sector, which is a key driver of the Welsh economy, but has the potential for even greater growth in the years ahead - driven by exciting companies and technologies not only making a huge impact in the UK marketplace, but on the global stage too.”