Five categories were awarded across the night, each presented by a leader from the sector.

Business Category Winners & Overall Champion

Presented by Laura Malcolm, AI Governance Practitioner and long-time TechDiversity supporter, the Business Category went to Fire and Wattle : 

Cultural Competency that Closes the Digital Divide, accepted by Todd Phillips. An Indigenous-owned social enterprise barely twelve months old, Fire and Wattle reinvests a share of its profits into Deadly Coders to put digital skills in the hands of young Indigenous Australians. Commercial training and community outcomes, built into the same product.

Merit Recipients: Datacom First Nations ICT Trainee Programme (with iDiC and JY Australia); She Lives Tech Program by FDM Group Australia; and The ‘Unstoppable You’ Program by Atlassian .

Education

Presented by Chrissy Burns , Chief Information Officer at UNSW Sydney (our Amplifier sponsor), the Education Category went to Virtual Reality Training 

for Health Care by Vantari VR , accepted by Nishanth Krishnananthan, MD and Tina van Weelderen. Vantari VR is the flight simulator for healthcare, letting doctors, nurses and students rehearse life-saving procedures in a safe, scalable virtual environment before they ever treat a real patient. Almost lost for words, the team spoke about why it matters: so much medical error is preventable with better training, and this is technology that saves lives.

Merit Recipients: Datacom’s Virtual Work Experience Platform via Forage; Building a First Nations Tech Talent Pipeline through the Deadly Coders Academy (Deadly Coders, Baidam, Commonwealth Bank , Cyconsol and ANZ ); and Creating Early Pathways into AI through Minecraft Education (Deadly Coders and Microsoft Australia).

Government

Presented by Elizabeth (Izzy) Whitelock CEO of the AIIA , a major supporter this year and one of our Advocate sponsors, the Government Category went to My QuitBuddy: Free Digital Support for Quitting Smoking and Vaping, from the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing with Miroma Project Factory , accepted by Lynette Reeves. The team’s specialism is digital behaviour change, and the best endorsement came from users themselves. Two kinds of feedback said it all: “finally, something from the government that works,” and a few people genuinely baffled that something this good could be free.

Merit Recipient: People First AI Enablement in a Critical Infrastructure Workforce by the Power and Water Corporation.

Campaign of the Year

Presented by Tom Fogden , Editor of B&T , our generous media partner, the Campaign of the Year went to Buddy: From Burden to Belonging by Uniting NSW.ACT, accepted by Adele Goh and Sam Leslie. Uniting, one of the largest aged care providers in NSW, built Buddy internally to give carers their time back. As the team put it, the work is not about holding a pen. It is about holding the hands of the people they serve.

Merit Recipients: Alt-TAB: A National Safety by Design Tool for Responsible Innovation by Away from Keyboard Inc.; Code with Confidence Coding Workshop by FDM Group Australia; and Give Voice Through Music: The Junbell Campaign by Alluviar.

Tech for Good

Presented by Daniel Van Boom Van Business Journalist at Forbes Australia, the Tech for Good Category went to Closing the Digital Divide: Deadly Coders Online, accepted by Andrew Brodie and Grant Maher. After a decade covering big tech, Dan called it a welcome reminder that technology exists to serve people. Deadly Coders Online reaches more than 6,500 Indigenous learners across the country, from the Torres Strait to the Kimberley, with culturally grounded coding, AI and financial literacy. The team spoke about giving young people a seat at the table on the safety of technology.

Merit Recipients: Marco Polo by Marco Polo Portal; Atlassian’s Accessibility Program by Atlassian; Online Speech Clinic for People with Acquired Brain Injury by Changineers; PonyUp for Good by PonyUp for Good; and Technologies of Voice Interface by Voiceitt.