World class Digital talent recognised

14 February 2011

The 2011 Satellite Broadband Ireland Digital Media Awards have proved that Ireland is fast becoming the digital hub of Europe.  The award winners were announced at a gala ceremony in the Convention Centre Dublin on Friday evening (11 February) with each entry playing testament to the remarkable talent we have here.

A sterling example of this talent is Martello Media who scooped the 2011 Grand Prix accolade (pictured).  The firm, run by Mark Leslie, picked up the award for Best Digital Design for a project with the Glasnevin Museum. Martello implemented the world's first interactive cemetery museum, showing the social, historical, political and artistic development of modern Ireland through the seven generations of people buried there. As Martello Media received the most marks of any entry, from each of the 20 judges, it won the overall top prize.

On Martello Media’s entry one judge remarked: “Creative work on what was clearly a difficult project to work with. Despite the sensitivity of the subject matter they have delivered a work which is impressive and will be appreciated by the user-base. The level of detail in the final project is nothing short of exceptional.”

Well known design studio CKSK had a very successful evening and picked up 4 awards for projects with Heineken, Vhi and the Oxegen music festival.  They also achieved 8 runner-up placements.  Best in Gaming was won by PopCap Games, the developers of popular games such as Bejewelled and Plants vs. Zombies.  PopCap recently announced that it is increasing its workforce in Dublin.  ICAN, headed up by Siobhan Lavery, won the coveted Best Digital Advertising / Marketing Agency award.

Bord Gais Energy won the Mobile Internet Innovation award for Thinking Beyond App; Irish Life collected the award for B2B Innovation for the Pension Planet Interactive project and RaboDirect was victorious in the Best Financial Services category with the straight Talking Online Bank entry.

Around the country meanwhile esus Web Solutions in Douglas, Cork, run by Gary O’Flynn, won the Best Web Design Agency award and IT Sligo picked up the Best in E-Learning for the KITE Project, the main aim of which is to enhance its online programmes by providing “live”, interactive, instructor led training on specialist software and hardware over the internet.

A name certainly worth keeping an eye on is Kelley O’Sullivan, who won the Student Digital Award for the second consecutive year.  Kelley impressed the judges with Lie out of Life, a short film highlighting male abuse in relationships.  Kelley, who is originally from Co. Kerry, was a student in Animation at IADT in Dun Laoghaire.

Kevin Ryan of Satellite Broadband Ireland agrees:"We have the cream of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship within the digital sector across the various nominees, and in an era of change and uncertainly we can be sure of one thing, the digital sector in Ireland is thriving.  Through the hard work and dedication that takes place within the industry we are positioning ourselves as a nation at the forefront of the Digital Revolution."

The IDA has predicted that between 9,000 and 10,000 jobs in the field of digital media will be created in 2011 through direct foreign investment, a most welcome prediction.  There are strong opportunities in the digital sector for both business and employment providing indigenous investment is forthcoming.  However a warning from Ronan Harris, Director of Online Sales at Google and a member of the awards judging panel, is worth heeding: Irish business will not recover without e-commerce.

Commenting on the awards, event director Susan Grant said: “The benchmark is always high for these awards and this year was no exception.  We should be proud to have such amazing, world-class digital genius here in Ireland and it was certainly an honour for us to acknowledge it.  I’ve no doubt that we have seen some international leaders of the future.”

 

A full list of winners is available from www.DigitalMedia.ie