Wordnerds, Accenture and ZeroLight have been named among the North East’s top tech businesses at one of the region’s biggest awards ceremonies.
More than 450 people attended the Dynamites 19 Awards, which honours the best and brightest working in the North East’s tech community.
The awards are organised by industry network Dynamo, which hosted the event at Newcastle’s Civic Centre on Thursday. A total of 12 awards were handed out at the event, with Accenture being the big winner of the evening.
The company walked away with the Diversity and Inclusion Award as well as picking up the prize for the corporate Project of the Year.
Commenting on evening Abi Ridley, business analyst at Accenture, said: “It’s been an amazing night, and an amazing experience. Accenture takes diversity and inclusion extremely seriously so it’s great to see the commitment recognised by such a prestigious award.”
Another winner was Wordnerds, a tech firm that uses artificial intelligence and linguistics to understand how companies are viewed online by their customers. The firm won the first award of the night, taking home the innovator of the year prize.
Virtual reality firm ZeroLight also won the international success story award. The company uses its software to help car manufacturers around the world launch their new cars as well as boosting sales in dealerships.
Jim Mawdsley, CEO of business support agency Generator, was presented with the Dynamites Lifetime Achievement Award for his on-going work in developing the tech community in the region.
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Chair of the Dynamites judging panel Anne MacDonald explained the importance of the region’s tech sector, and the role of the Dynamites, saying: “The region continues to impress with its innovation and digital expertise. Tonight is about giving recognition to some of the amazing work that is happening in our tech and digital companies and organisations.
“Raising the profile of our region to ensure we secure investment and sustained business growth is essential and the awards help to achieve that. The calibre of entries this year was nothing short of amazing and gave the judging panel some tough decisions.”
Charlie Hoult, chair of Dynamo, added: “The Dynamites are a perfect way to recognise the tech talent in the region, and for people working in the sector to come together and let their hair down for a great night out.
“Dynamo is all about raising the profile of the sector – making some noise, and we did just that during what was a great night for the region’s tech and digital sector.
“I’d like to congratulate all of our winners and thank all of our sponsors, particularly our headline sponsor Gateshead College.”
The full list of winners :
• Innovator of the year - Wordnerds
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• Diversity and inclusion - Accenture
• Skills developer - NHS Business Services Authority
• Digital cluster champion - Charlie MacDowall
• Growth explosion - SoPost
• Project of the year, corporate - Accenture and BTF (Athlete Genome project)
• Project of the year, not for profit and public sector - Opencast Software and NHSBSA (Major Mainframe Modernisation project)
• International success story - Zerolight
• Rising star - Nate Sterling from Grid Smarter Cities
• Tech for good - Biosignatures Ltd
• Outstanding achievement - Jim Mawdsley
• People’s choice award - Hive HR