The youngest ever winner of the Tech4Good Awards – 10-year-old inventor Arnav Sharma – officially opened nominations for the 2017 AbilityNet Tech4Good Awards. Arnav won the Tech4Good People’s and Winner of Winner’s Awards in 2016 for his lifesaving invention Asthma Pi – and he revealed his latest invention in an interview with BBC tech journalist and broadcaster Kate Russell at the Awards launch at BT Tower on 7 March.
Most children of Arnav’s age would be sat at home playing on a computer – not building one that can save lives. But as the last six years have shown the people who take part in our Tech4Good Awards aren’t your average people. As well as pitching his Asthma Pi to investors he’s been busy developing a new app to help people with dementia.
Other tech innovators and winners shared their stories at the launch and underlined about the impact Tech4Good Awards had on their projects and other people’s lives.
Speakers included Umesh Pandya from Wayfindr, David Godley from MyWard, Simone Enefer-Doy from Lifelites. They spoke passionately about what the awards had meant to them, how they had been a pivotal moment, opening new possibilities, opportunities and relationships.
There are 11 Awards this year, including Accessibility Award, BT Connected Society Award, BT Young Pioneer Award and Digital Health.
The new Comic Relief Tech4Good for Africa Award takes Tech4Good into uncharted territory. Billy Dann and Pontso Mafethe of Comic Relief announced the award, which is looking for inspiring ways that tech is helping communities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Until now all the winners needed to have a base in the UK. While this is still true in the other categories the winners of this Award can be based anywhere in the world, as long as the people their supporting are in sub-Saharan Africa.
If you, or someone you know, are using digital technology to change people’s lives, we want to hear from you.
Full details of all eight Awards and how to enter can be found on the Enter Now page
Entries close at 5pm on 8 May 2017.
