Celebrating the stars of the Scottish technology industry
The stars of the Scottish digital technology
industry were recognised last night at
the annual Digital Technology Awards in Glasgow in front of an audience of over
250 guests.
Celebrating the very best in Scotland’s digital technology industries, the awards highlight the growth, innovation and export earnings achieved by a range of businesses across the industry, providing good news in the current economic turmoil.
Polly Purvis, Executive Director of organisers, ScotlandIS, said:
“Ours is an exciting and vibrant industry employing very many talented people and we’re delighted to recognise the achievements of the industry’s leading lights. The Tech sector is not immune to the difficult trading conditions, but many companies are still delivering outstanding results.”
Two companies shared the Scottish Digital Technology Company of the Year Award – fantasy sports operator FanDuel picked up the award for smaller companies whilst Skyscanner, the flights comparison portal, won the larger company award.
FanDuel, originally a spin out from the University of Edinburgh, has taken on the likes of Yahoo, ESPN and CBS, to gain a growing niche in
the North American fantasy sports market. The judges were impressed by their really well executed go to market plan coupled
with exceptional revenue growth.
The judges chose Skyscanner for an exceptional performance in terms
of turnover, export earnings and headcount and for sheer global ambition. From its base in Edinburgh, it has grown to become the No 1 travel search site in the UK, Italy and Russia, with markets across the world.
The full list of winners and finalists is :
Award for
best newcomer. Winner – Firefish Software
Sponsored by NSDesign
Glasgow based Firefish Software provides specialist online recruitment software to the hr and recruitment industry. Their award recognises a very well executed product with a substantial potential market.
First runner up – miiCard - online identity authentication software
Second runner up – Taiga Technologies - IT energy saving software
Award for
best new product or service. Winner – Procure
Wizard
Sponsored by HotTinRoof
Procure Wizard offers an integrated online procurement solution geared to small and mid-sized companies in the hospitality industry.
First runner up – miiCard - identity authentication software
Second runner up – Virtual
Interconnect - a provider of routed systems solutions
Award for
outstanding performance in business growth (Small companies) – FanDuel
Sponsored by Enigma People
The Edinburgh based company has offices in Edinburgh and New York. FanDuel is a leading one-day fantasy sports game for NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL in the US. Fanduel has taken on the likes of Yahoo ESPN and CBS in the North American market, to gain a growing niche in the fantasy sports market and increasing their market share five fold in 2011.
First runner up – Free Agent - online accounting software for small businesses and freelancers
Second runner up – Alienation Digital - web developers and digital agency
Award for
outstanding performance in business growth (Large companies) – Iomart
Sponsored by RBS Group
Glasgow based iomart has transformed their business into one of the leading cloud computing and managed hosting companies in the UK. Over the last 12 months they have increased turnover from £25 to £33 million, and more than doubled profits from just under £3million to over £6 million.
First runner up – Barrhead Travel, for their online
business
Second runner up – Updata Infrastructure - telecoms network specialists
Award for
technology innovation within Financial Services– miiCard
Sponsored by Head Resourcing
miiCard provides an innovative online identity verification allowing customers to prove for the first time ‘they are who they say they are’ to bank regulation standards without the need for a physical ID check. MiiCard recently secured £1.6m funding to accelerate the adoption of their ‘digital passport’ and support their expansion into the US market.
First runner up – RBS for Connections
Second runner up – RBS for Branch OMI App
Award for
Best IT Project - brightsolid
Sponsored by ScotlandIS
Online publisher brightsolid’s award recognises their work with the British Library to deliver the most significant mass digitisation of newspapers the UK has ever seen. This extremely complex IT project involves digitising up to 40 million historic pages from the national newspaper collection, making large parts of this unparalleled resource available online for the first time.
First runner up – Edinburgh Napier University for
Cloud4Health
Second runner up – RBS for Connections
Award for International
growth - Skyscanner
Sponsored by ScotlandIS
Skyscanner is a leading travel search site providing instant online comparisons for millions of flights on over a thousand airlines. Skyscanner opened its Singapore office in September 2011 and employ staff from several Asia Pacific countries. The company has witnessed a huge increase in international sales from 45% of turnover in 2011 to 70% this year. They now cover 40 countries and are ranked No 1 in UK, Italy and Russia.
First runner up – FanDuel - fantasy sports operator
Second runner up – AMCS Group - integrated environmental software
Award for
Public Sector – Scottish Government
Sponsored by ScotlandIS
The Scottish Government for its Cross Agency Information Sharing Hub allowing Courts, Prisons and Fiscals to share data securely. This complex pan Scotland project was undertaken with a relatively small budget and generated considerable savings.
First runner up – The Improvement Service for the
‘tellme’ portal
Second runner up – North Ayrshire Council’s ReportIT
app
Award for Exceptional
Business Innovation Through Technology - RBS Group
Sponsored by ScotlandIS
This
was a special award made to the RBS Group Technology team in recognition of the
way in which they are harnessing their technology expertise
with ideas from staff in a wide range of the bank’s business units, to develop
new apps and new ways of working. RBS
submitted six applications in total ranging from Connections and OMI through
the network transformation programme to the truly outstanding mobile banking
app, a world first which has been adopted by millions of customers since its
launch last year
Scottish Digital Technology Company of the Year (Large company) – Skyscanner
Sponsored by ScotlandIS
Runners up – Iomart - cloud computing and managed hosting
Second runner up - Lingo24 - online translation services for business
Scottish Digital Technology Company of the Year (small company) – Fanduel Plc
Sponsored by Bright Purple
Runners Up – Scolocate - provider of premium energy efficient data centres
Third place - Procure Wizard - online procurement solution