The winners of the AbilityNet Tech4Good Awards 2016 have been announced at a glittering ceremony at BT Centre.
Our 28 finalists were joined by special guests from the worlds of charity, technology and government. Our host, award-winning technology journalist Kate Russell, revealed nine winners, before the audience used the power of glowsticks to choose the Winner of Winners.
The Awards celebrate the people who use technology to make the world a better place. This year’s winners included the BBC micro:bit, an innovation that will save the NHS time and money and a nine year-old inventor who walked off with two of the Awards!
The Winner of Winners is decided by the audience using the power of glow sticks. Tech wizard Paul Hayes runs a system that counts votes based on how quickly the audience wave their glow sticks.
Any of our Award winners could take home this trophy, but after a head-to-head between IT Volunteer of the Year Maureen Johnston and People’s Award winner Arnav Sharma it was Arnav who became our double-Award winner of the night.
The big surprise of the day was delivered by Liz Williams, Director of Tech Literacy and Education at BT, who announced that Robin Christopherson, Head of Digital Inclusion at AbilityNet was this year’s winner of the Tech4Good Special Award.
A regular speaker at Tech4Good events, Robin had just finished a wonderful speech about the value of tech for disabled people when Liz surprised him with the news. The Award – which has previously been won by people such as Professor Stephen Hawking – recognises Robin’s 20+ years of using tech for good and inspiring and educating people across the world.
We’ll have a gallery of photos for you to view shortly, but until then we would like to say a special thank you to all of the finalists who gave live demonstrations of their products.
Congratulations to all of this year’s winners and finalists.
AbilityNet Accessibility Award
Wayfindr
BT MyDonate Fundraising Award
Neighbourly
BT Young Pioneer Award
eWATERPay
Community Impact Award
SafetyNets/Ugly Mugs
Digital Health Award
MyWard
Digital Skills Award
BBC micro:bit
IT Volunteer of the Year Award
Maureen Johnston
Tech4Good People’s Award
Arnav Sharma
Winner of Winners Award
Arnav Sharma
Tech4Good Special Award
Robin Christopherson
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