Digital stars rewarded at local tech ‘Oscars’ event

The best digital companies and entrepreneurs were recognised recently at the annual tech ‘Oscars’.

With the region’s tech industry now worth nearly £5bn, judges at the SPARKies had to choose from a record field of 225 nominations across the 14 categories.

This year they rewarded hardware innovators and those competing on the global stage – while also backing the region’s reputation as a game development cluster.

The two stars of the night were incubator games developer Opposable Games and Ultrahaptics (developing pioneering technology allowing users to ‘feel’ and change a screen without physical contact) – each ended the night clutching a pair of SPARKies.

Sparkies founder David Maher Roberts comments: “The judges’ thinking has reflected the growth of the local tech industry and they’ve tended to reward companies and individuals with big ambitions.

“We’ve now moved into a situation where we’ve got local companies like Coull, vouchercloud and Zynstra winning business both nationally and on the global market.

“And in the wings we’ve got a new generation of exciting start-ups – companies like Ultrahaptics and Open Bionics.”