Excellence in IT Awards Finalists

ITP Team. 09 July 2021, 2:15 pm

The finalists for the NZ Excellence in IT Awards have been announced, and what an amazing bunch they are!

Finalists are from across the tech sector, with a strong focus on the unsung heroes from the digital response to Covid-19, plus many more.

The finalists are:

Excellence in Software

Umbrellar Development Team - Lead by Alex Basan
This team have delivered a market disrupting and innovative product (MyCSP.io) leveraging Cloud first development practices. As an all in one business platform for Microsoft resellers clearly delivering on a market need.
Gumboot Friday Team
In a rapid timeframe this team has applied innovation both in re-imagining how a mental health counselling service can be made accessible and delivered. The Gumboot Friday platform empowers young people in finding a counsellor and manages the supporting logistics around this.
Healthcare Compliance Solutions Ltd (HCSL) Aged Care Software team
This software has made a major contribution to the efficiency of many clients in the Aged Residential Care sector. The software has disrupted and changed how health care records are updated and accessed in its target sector and during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Project Excellence Award

South Island Cancer Multidisciplinary Meeting (MDM) System Implementation Team
The South Island Cancer MDM System Implementation Team have recently completed a 3.5-year programme to establish a single South Island DHB cancer MDM meeting management software system (SIMMS). Governance, change management and stakeholder engagement were vital.
Kylie Robinson (the AC36 RMS Team)
The project involved the creation of the Race Management System (RMS) for American's Cup 36, consisting of suite of complex hardware and software solutions. It had to be right, and it had to be on time or the race couldn't run. A well-executed complex Project.
NZ Algorithm Hub Project
The team at Orion Health delivered the world's first national algorithm management solution for New Zealand. The Hub was designed and built by a cross-disciplinary team in rapid time, providing tools for New Zealand's COVID-19 response as well as long term capability, shared freely across the sector.

Excellence in Digital Health

COVID-19 laboratory digital response
The huge lab response included the rapid assembly of solutions to solve problems to enable NZ to better manage the fallout from COVID-19 on a truly national scale. Significant work under immense pressure with truly impressive results.
Data and Digital Directorate, Ministry of Health
Covid-19 placed massive pressure on the NZ Ministry of Health, and it was the role of the Data and Digital Directorate to respond to a new set of unique challenges with an unprecedented level of urgency. The MOH staff and partners delivered a host of new solutions to manage NZ's COVID-19 response.
Pieta Brown
Pieta has had a huge career in the healthcare technology sector, and consistently demonstrates excellence in both leadership and innovation. She's made significant contributions to healthcare data science through leading various research projects for Precision Driven Health and Orion Health.

Excellence in Govtech

Road Efficiency Group and Company-X
The One Network Road Classification Performance Measures Reporting Tool (ONRC PMRT) is the world's first national roading performance reporting and data quality assurance tool. Created by Andrew and Jeremy of Company-X, it has made evidence-based decision-making in Transport far easier.
Data and Digital Directorate, Ministry of Health
The data and digital directorate were faced with an unexpected and extraordinary situation in 2020 and a need to respond quickly to support the Government's Covid-19 response. The sheer number of releases achieved in a short time frame and high-pressure context is impressive.
Te Ara Manaaki
Around 35,000 applications for citizenship are received each year from people wanting to become New Zealand citizens. Before Te Ara Manaaki delivered its citizenship project, this was a largely manual and laborious process. The service was rebuilt end-to-end with incredible results.

Gerard MacManus Award for Excellence in IT Education

Rosalie Reiri
Rosalie's passion to drive an understanding of Te Ao Māori across a number of people and organisations in the technology education sector should be commended. This work is critical in the education sector to help redress the imbalance that exists with the IT sector currently.
Sarah Washbrooke
Sarah has made a big contribution to the Digital Technologies education Body of Knowledge, to her own students in her practice, and in driving a pathway into secondary school DT learning, even with health challenges.
Grant Newport
Grant's dedication to increasing the partnership between industry and tertiary organisations is excellent. The positive impact this has had for the organisations involved and, particularly, on pathways to employment for students, has made a big difference.

Excellence in Inclusion

Chandra Harrison
Accessibility is such a big part of Inclusion and it is wonderful to see Chandra's commitment over such a long period of time through Access Advisors. She's making a huge difference to people's lives in the disability community.
Patrick Dowling
Patrick has led some significant improvements to inclusion at Techtorium, backed up by impressive data showing the lift in Māori and Pasifika inclusion in training. Their commitment to diversity will make a big difference to the future of our industry.
Tim Young
After a year of consultation with members of Disabled Persons Assembly, CCS/Disability Action, Blind and Low Vision and Deaf Aotearoa, Tim and his team created Smart Access which captures environmental factors that affect a wide range of people and abilities. This has the potential to change infrastructure and travel forever.

Excellence in People Leadership

Gillian Robinson
Gillian Robinson from HCSL saw a big opportunity to design digital services to disrupt and change how health care records are updated and accessed in aged residential care (ARC) services. A wonderful example of technology being used to solve problems during challening times.
Kyle Forde
A call to arms came on a Thursday night to stand up Community Based Assessments Centres in Dunedin, following positive results for Covid-19 in the community. In just 72 hours, Kyle and his team developed an electronic system to record covid tests and results, a call centre service and helped set up the first Assessment Centre in Dunedin.
Kylie Reiri
Kylie Reiri, CEO of Nicholson Consulting, brought together te ao Māori and western approaches to create an environment where everyone can express and develop their ideas. An impressive leadership story blending bold leadership and a clear focus and care for their people.

Excellence in Tech Communications

Emma Harding
In 1999, Emma and her husband Ian founded Streamliners as a technical communication company. The company has grown and evolved, and now employs over 100 people who help develop guidance for practitioners in health and education impacting over 30 million people in NZ, Australia, and the UK.
Quentin Kelly
Quentin is a Technical Specialist for Spark, specifically the Corporate Faults service desk. The judges were super impressed with the spirit and enthusiasm of Quentin in his individual achievements in documentation while motivating those around him.
Entry Withdrawn

Young IT Professional of the Year

Alex Stewart
Alex demonstrates a huge commitment to community and entrepreneurship, demonstrated by establishing the ISP WombatNET to provide Internet access to people in areas not well served by mainstream Internet providers.
Eteroa Lafaele
Eteroa puts in a huge amount of work supporting Māori, Pasifika and women in IT through mentoring, specialist software development and working with government agencies.
Ning Hua
Ning is a data scientist building models that are explainable and transparent, and most latterly her contribution to New Zealand's COVID-19 modelling response that's made a huge difference.

New Zealand IT Professional of the Year

Kevin Ross
Kevin has made a massive contribution to data science and analytics in NZ over a long period of time. His contribution to New Zealand's COVID-19 modelling response was massive and made a huge difference to New Zealand.
Kylie Reiri
Kylie Reiri has shown huge leadership in New Zealand, melding te ao Māori and western approaches in the field of data analytics. Kylie demonstrates that when you bring together culture, values and technology it enables people to bring their whole self and energy to the work they do.
Kylie Robinson
Starting out in animation in the days when it was done with CAD tools, Kylie then founded Igtimi from a startup to now supplying Olympic teams worldwide with hardware and software products to assist sailing coaches win Olympic medals. She's also an active mentor, code club facilitator and so much more.