Ten Western Australian ICT industry leaders and future stars have taken out the top gongs in this year’s annual WAITTA INCITE Awards, held last night at The Westin Perth.
The State’s longest running Tech Awards program, the Awards are famed for their highly regarded and rigorous judging process, and ability to propel its finalists to the national and global stage.
Vying for Awards this year were twenty-nine WA-based companies and organisations – including an energy provider (Horizon Power), a mental health and wellbeing app (Oqea), a carbon footprint calculator (ClimateClever), and more.
Winners were announced last night at a glittering soirée attended by 300 guests at The Westin Perth. Hosted by MC Gerry Gannon, guests enjoyed a delicious three course dinner menu, live entertainment from Fluid Groove, heard from dignitaries including the Hon Stephen Dawson MLC and City of Perth Councillor Rebecca Gordon, and more.
In a bumper celebration of WA-bred innovation, the Awards demonstrate that WA’s thriving ICT and tech sector shows no signs of slowing.
WAITTA President, Colin Janssen, said, “Tonight, we stand in a room with some of the brightest minds and biggest ideas in WA.
Once again, this year’s finalists and category winners have showcased just how exciting a place WA is for technology and world-first solutions to global problems. We can all leave here tonight proud to be a part of this wonderful community and the State of Western Australia.
Each year we are more and more impressed by the calibre of our entrants. We can only imagine the outstanding new solutions and innovative ideas we will see next year… We look forward to seeing you again in 2023.”
This year’s product category winners are:
Startup of the Year
Winner: Assuro, a world first digital platform born to simplify bank guarantees for businesses around the globe by making obtaining one simple, fast and low cost.
Merit winner: Gridcognition, an energy tech startup on an environmental mission to accelerate the transition to a decentralised and decarbonised energy future through an ‘out of the box’ energy project modelling software.
Social Impact
Winner: Neurotologix, for their innovative, low-cost IoT device called ROMI, a remote patient monitoring system with proven potential to revolutionise how dizziness and vertigo are diagnosed – the first solution in the market to address a worldwide clinical need for assessing this episodic condition.
Merit winner: Dr Brennen Mills & Jessica Watson of Edith Cowan University for Sideffect Gameplan, a freely available, online, student-centred, curriculum-informed harm minimisation education resource designed to increase young people’s ability to make safe decisions in relation to alcohol and other drugs.
Transformative Business Solutions
Winner: Pentanet neXus, a gigabit-enabled network delivering extremely fast and reliable internet connections that are quick to deploy and significantly more accessible than traditional networks – the future of internet connectivity in Perth.
Merit winner: DUG, for their cost-effective, green, cloud-based High Performance Computing as a Service (HPCaaS), backed by bespoke support for technology onboarding to help organisations unlock valuable insights from their wealth of data to turbocharge scientific and business applications.
Innovating Government
Winner: Marble Bar Primary School, Department of Education Western Australia for Marble Bar Virtual Worlds, a collaboration with Elders and Airborne IT at Marble Bar Primary School to create a first of its kind virtual reality gallery showcasing Nyamal Culture to local and international audiences.
Research & Innovation Project of the Year
Winner: Dr Brennen Mills & Jessica Watson of Edith Cowan University for Sideffect Gameplan, a freely available, online, student-centred, curriculum-informed harm minimisation education resource designed to increase young people’s ability to make safe decisions in relation to alcohol and other drugs.
Research & Innovation Project of the Year (Postgraduate Tertiary Student Projects only)
Winner: Omar Anwar of the University of WA for Smart beehive monitoring system for remote regions, a monitoring system that utilises the latest in long range technologies for communication and machine learning to eliminate the expensive components of monitoring honeybees to maintain healthy beehives.
Peter Fillery Undergraduate Tertiary Student Project
Winner: Peyton Foley, Benjamin Boothby, Alex Drewett, Jordan Richards & Max Barker of Deloitte & Curtin University for Optimisation Using Quantum Computers, a quantum computing interface which solves business optimisation problems by minimising the total timespan of complex project schedules.
This year’s Honorary Award winners are:
Pearcey Western Australian Entrepreneur of the Year
Mahmood Hussein, Founder and CEO of Global Drone Solutions, a commercial drone training and services company helping individuals and businesses unlock the benefits of drone technology.
Dr Mal Bryce Western Australian Tech Company of the Year
Aqura Technologies, a leading provider of next-generation fixed and industrial wireless networks responding to the demands of Industry 4.0 with industrial networks designed, engineered and delivered by an in-house WA team.
Achiever of the Year
Sheryl Frame, Co-Founder and Director of VentureX HQ, a dynamic, inclusive and educational network for women who are founders of scaleable business ventures or investors seeking opportunities for growth and investment.
Led by the WA Information Technology and Telecommunications Alliance (WAITTA), the INCITE Awards are the State’s premier ICT event and have been putting WA tech on the map since 1991.
This year’s product category award and merit winners will now represent WA at the national iAwards.
As a voluntary organisation, the INCITE Awards would not be possible without the support of our community and sponsors. WAITTA would like to thank: City of Perth, Office of Digital Government, Kinetic IT, ES2, DC Alliance, MTPConnect, Cohesion, Datacom, JourneyOne, Valrose, Curtin University, estrat, Business News, Australian Computer Society, Pearcey Foundation, and Aurora.