The best companies and individuals in tech in the South West were honoured last week at an awards ceremony in Bath.
The SPARKies awards celebrated their fifth anniversary with a record number of guests attending the event, sponsored by Gradwell Communications, on Thursday June 29 2017 at Komedia.
In the run-up to the night, 21 judges, all prominent figures in the South West tech community, had to read through no less than 240 nominations to select the winners.
Abby Frear, director of the SPARKies, said: “It’s been an exceptional year for the SPARKies. We received a record number of applications, the quality of which was incredibly high.
“The judges were truly impressed and it wasn’t always easy for them to pick the winners.
“The ceremony at Komedia was sold out and brought together many key players, shakers and movers in the region’s tech community.”
Over 300 guests attended the ceremony to find out which start-ups, designs, hardware, people and more had been crowned winner of 2017 SPARKies.
Bristol’s Wriggle was the only one to take home two awards, for Best App and Best Digital Marketing Campaign. The judges commented that “the app does one very useful thing very well” and had achieved “staggering results with an impressively small team and a tiny budget.”
Nick Sturge, currently director of Engine Shed, was given the Lifetime Achievement award for his dedication in promoting the South West tech cluster.
The People’s Choice award was selected on the night by the guests in attendance and went to Bath-based firm Mayden, specialists in web applications and bespoke system development for the healthcare sector.
Abby said: “We would like to thank all our sponsors and partners for their continued support and making the SPARKies possible.
“We would also like to once again congratulate all of this year’s winners and hope they will continue to achieve great things.”
Other notable Bath winners include Complete Control in the Best Digital Design category and Bath:Hacked, winners of the Data,Data,Data award. To see the full list of winners visit: www.thesparkies.com
Pictured above: Mayden take home the People’s Choice award. Photo by John Craig.
