Winners of the 2019 WID Awards
The Women in Digital Awards were founded based on the idea ‘you can’t be what you can’t see.’ The awards are a celebration of incredible women and non-binary folk within the digital industries and the organisations that support them.
For the second annual Women in Digital Awards, we had the privilege of hosting over 500 people at the iconic Howard Smith Wharves in Brisbane. It was not an easy job for our panel of industry expert judges but we are so very excited to announce our incredible WINNERS of the 2019 Women in Digital Awards.
Get to know the 2019 WID Award Winners
The 2019 Founder of the Year, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), is… Nyree McKenzie
The crowd favourite is always the AWS Founder of the Year award attracting even more entrants than the outstanding amount we received for the other categories. The competition was F.I.E.R.C.E. and as corny as it sounds, all three of our AWS Founder of the Year finalists should feel like winners. However, only one could take home the trophy and that was the wondrous Nyree McKenzie.
Nyree is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bidhive, an all-in-one bid management platform that provides the framework, critical path and collaboration tools teams need to win more bids. By using big data and advanced analytics, Bidhive helps companies better understand the relational factors behind their bid’s success or failure, and use this to shape a winning bid in the context of each new opportunity.
It was Bidhive’s impressive early growth as a first-to-market tech start-up and Nyree’s hands-on, authentic leadership style that ultimately saw her win the 2019 AWS Founder of the Year award.
The judges said…
“Bidhive is a well-thought-out innovative product set to have a global impact. Their early achievements are impressive as is the founder’s leadership philosophy and ability to maintain the same team from early start-up days.”
The 2019 Executive Leader of the Year, powered by Microsoft, is… Jacyl Shaw
Jacyl Shaw is the Global Practice Director – D-Lab at GHD. GHD is one of the world’s leading professional services companies operating in the global markets of water, energy and resources, environment, property and buildings, and transportation.
Jacyl won the award for her role as one of three Global Practice Directors of GHD Digital, responsible for the Digital Lab (D-Lab) practice and her work on building a value-based culture in her team and her extensive work in the community (working directly with young adults, regional communities and peers).
The judges said…
“Congratulations on your stellar career! Your dedication to breathing life into rural Australia is particularly wonderful. Fingers crossed, the digital economy will enable creative and entrepreneurial opportunities to flourish in communities throughout Australia. The intersection between digital, flexibility of work and sustainability is so important. Thank you for being an outstanding leader in the industry as well as being committed to enabling others.”
“Jacyl has provided some great examples of contributing to the industry and is clearly very passionate about it – and sets a good narrative.”
The 2019 Community Champion of the Year, powered by Queensland Urban Utilities, is… Tess Wethereld
Tess Wethereld is an R&D Innovation Architect at TechnologyOne, but it is her work with STEAM Lab that saw her win this award.
Tess co-created the TechnologyOne STEAM Lab with Olivia Ward to bring out-of-the-box activities to young children living in low socio-economic environments. The purpose is to encourage the children to consider STEAM as a future career and promote diversity from a young age.
The judges said…
“A great example of an initiative that looks at encouraging children of all ages to think more laterally about careers in digital. The approach to reaching out to those in lower socio-economic areas is critical to ensure that when future talent pipelines are being created that diversity in all its forms is encouraged. I would like to see how these workshops could cater for those on the spectrum who might need a little more structure/quiet to thrive. It’s good to see someone who didn’t start out in a digital career find their way into the creation of this program aimed at education and awareness.
“Women in Digital is passionate about mentoring, educating, elevating and leading the next generation of women in digital. – I feel like Tess is the embodiment of this statement. She is working with kids in lower socio-economic areas to ensure the equality and inclusion is taught to them and they can see a career in STEM is a real and tangible option. My favourite entrant in this category to date.”
The 2019 Developer of the Year, powered by ERM Power, is… Tharanga Kasthuriarachchi
Tharanga is a Junior Software Engineer at MAXART Pty Ltd where she makes Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality applications for training and education for companies.
Tharanga won the award for her work on SpecStar; a gamified onboarding tool for Specsavers staff using augmented reality.
SpecStar was received very well by SpecSavers and recently won an award for Best Game. SpecSavers are currently using it to train new employees.
Outside of work, Tharanga is an active member in the digital diversity community as the current organiser for the Brisbane LGBT+ and Allies in Tech Meetup. She also mentors at MusesCodeJS.
The 2019 Digital Marketer of the Year, powered by Expose Media is… Navjot Sharma
Navjot is the Marketing Projects Manager at everyone’s favourite doughnut shop, Krispy Kreme. Her entry was based on the work she did for the Krispy Kreme Australia Throwback Party campaign in April-May 2019.
Campaign results included:
- +40% brand recall. Krispy Kreme Australia made it to number 18 on the Top 100 brands (ranked it amongst their best results in APAC)
- +32.8% increase in unique users on the site
- +29.8% uplift in the number of sessions
- +18.9% increase in time spent on site
- +50.9% increase in the number of mobile users
- +30.09% growth in eCommerce Sales.
- And… the Throwback Party products made up 25.3% of the eCommerce Sales for the campaign period.
The judges said…
“Super creative and interesting campaign, especially the nostalgia angle. It’s clear that the applicant really understands the problem, has done customer research and validation and used a clever marketing approach. I really enjoyed reading this application and it was well thought out and considered. Great results, too! Congrats.”
“Great submission and a great campaign. Really good to see the data insights and strategies for execution resulting in great uplift in overall results and sales.”
The 2019 Rising Star of the Year, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) is… Sharine Duran
Sharine Duran is an entrepreneur to watch! Founding Adzurra, an app dedicated to bringing “local fashion to the global shopper.”
Adzurra has already garnered the attention of shoppers and retailers now showcasing 52 retailers on the app, with 3,000 products now available to purchase directly in the app.
Sharine now has a team of three behind her and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for her.
The 2019 Innovator of the Year, powered by Suncorp, is… Katie Richards
Katie Richards is the CEO & Founder of Virtual Legal, “law online, anywhere, anytime.” Virtual Legal is disrupting the legal services industry by operating as a fixed-fee online law firm in Australia, New Zealand, soon the UK.
The judges said…
“Katie’s personal impact is astounding from an innovative technology perspective applied to social issues around access to legal advice, as well as opportunities it presents to lawyers who need flexible work hours without significant financial sacrifice. Amazing innovation and purpose-driven impact on the world.”
The 2019 Digital Producer of the Year, powered by Cult, is… Ebony Breen
Ebony Breen is the Content Producer at RedEye Apps. RedEye Apps build enterprise software as a service (SaaS) solutions in the mining, energy, water and infrastructure industries.
Ebony has won the award for her work on the RedEye Leadership Campaign. This was an ongoing brand awareness campaign to position RedEye and RedEye staff as thought leaders for both lead and talent acquisition purposes.
Campaign results included:
- 20% increase in LinkedIn followers
- 55% increase in Instagram followers
- 195% increase in organic impressions across LinkedIn (from 18,966 to 56, 112 impressions)
- 175% increase in organic clicks through LinkedIn (from 859 to 2362)
The judges said…
“B2B content marketing can be very dry but Ebony has achieved some great results and demonstrates and good understanding of brand, reputation and tone.”
“Highly tangible results for a broad-reaching content strategy and associated production.”
The 2019 AI Leader of the Year, powered by the Bank of Queensland (BOQ), is… Kirstin Butcher
Kirstin Butcher is the CEO, Founder and Head of Product of GenVis, a visual AI company building transformative and accessible cloud-based video analytics solutions.
“We use a combination of computer vision and machine learning to surface intelligence from live camera feeds or pre-recorded video footage. Our customers use our solutions to keep people and assets safe and to deliver timely intelligence to staff at all levels of an organisation, allowing them to make better decisions.” – Kirstin Butcher, Genvis
The judges said…
“Blown away! I very much look forward to seeing GenVis become a huge success.”
“From working with the WA Police Force to build technology to protect domestic violence survivors to tackling the aged care sector, GenVis is using the power of AI for good. We can’t wait to see what they do next!”
The 2019 Diversity Employer of the Year, powered by Canstar, is… Genie Solutions
Genie Solutions offers medical practice management software for Australian specialists.
Their diverse workforce stats:
- 46% females (of which 85% are full time)
- 50% females on executive team
- 39% females on leadership team
- 27% aged 21-30
- 49% aged 31-40
- 17% aged 41-50
- 7% aged 50+
“Diversity within our workforce and, equally important, inclusion, isn’t just something that we say but something that we strategically focus on.” – Genie Solutions
The 2019 Champion of Change, powered by the University of Queensland (UQ) Business School, is… Tech Girls Movement
This is the Tech Girls Movement’s second year winning a Women in Digital award for their tremendous program in championing women in STEM.
The judges said…
“The need for a movement, and program, of this calibre to champion equality for women in STEM is of great importance.”
“The TGMF have developed a comprehensive program (and competition) which addresses the core of the issues pertaining to the low number of women currently in STEM roles and careers. The traction that the program and competition has gained within the education sector – and their understanding of the curriculum environment and support required to grow further is comprehensive and impressive.”
Thank you to our amazing 2019 partners:
The Women in Digital Awards would not be possible without their support
