.IE Digital Town Awards 2023 Winners Announced at Gala Event
- Clonmel’s Smart Skills Agri-Tech project wins Overall .IE Digital Town Award & €10,000 prize fund
- Killorglin’s RDI Hub wins .IE Digital Business Award sponsored by Vodafone
- The .IE Digital Town Awards highlight the benefits and possibilities of digital and celebrates the digital achievements of towns and communities across Ireland
- Prize fund of €100,000 distributed across 10 digital innovation categories
Wednesday 24th May 2023: .IE, the national registry for .ie domain names, today announced the winning entries for the .IE Digital Town Awards 2023 at a Gala event held at the Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone.
The awards were created by .IE in 2021, as part of a broader four-year €1 million investment in the .IE Digital Town Programme encouraging the uptake and use of internet and digital technologies for businesses, citizens and communities. The awards recognise and reward digitally inspired projects run by towns and local community groups. Each year the .IE Digital Town Awards offer a prize fund of €100,000 which is split across several categories.
The .IE Agri-Tech award was introduced for the first time this year and its inaugural winner, Clonmel’s Smart Skills for Farming Communities was also named as the overall winner of the .IE Digital Town Awards 2023.
This year’s category sponsors included Western Development Commission, Connected Hubs, and AIB Merchant Services with Vodafone as the overall presenting sponsor.
.IE Digital Town Awards Winners 2023:
- .IE Agri-Tech Award Winner - Clonmel: Smart Skills for Farming Communities (Tipperary) Overall winner
- .IE Digital Education Award Winner - Fingal: Weather Stations for Schools (Dublin)
- .IE Digital Tourism Award Winner - Dunlewey: Virtual Heritage Trail (Donegal) sponsored by AIB Merchant Services
- .IE Community Digital Award Winner - Rossmore Scratchers (Tipperary) sponsored by the Western Development Commission
- .IE Digital Business Award Winner - Killorglin’s RDI Hub (Kerry) sponsored by Vodafone
- .IE Digital Sustainability Award Winner - Hollymount: Eco-Powered Cabinets for Defibrillators (Mayo)
- .IE Newcomer Award Winner - Portumna: Recording Family Histories (Galway)
- .IE Digital Rising Star Award - Drogheda: Drawda Urban Art Trail (Louth)
- .IE Digital Changemaker Award - Change Clothes Crumlin (Dublin) sponsored by Connected Hubs
- .IE Digital Local Hero Award - Clara Clarke, Blackrock Cycling without Age (Dublin)
The overall winner, Smart Skills for Farming Communities, helps farmers use new technologies to make their work easier, save time and money as well as improving the sustainability and profitability of their farm. The programme also delivers very practical digital training in areas such as soil fertility technology, grassland management technology, time and labour-saving technology, farm management systems, and handy Apps. The runner-up in the Agri-Tech category was the Achonry Farmer’s Market from Sligo.
The .IE Digital Sustainability award was another new category introduced this year with Hollymount in Mayo announced as the winner with its Eco-Powered Cabinets which store life-saving equipment. The runner-up in this category was the Open Litter Map project which maps illegal dumping and aims to reduce it by showing the positive impact of litter-picking.
The .IE Digital Business award, sponsored by Vodafone, was won by Killorglin’s RDI Hub. The hub was launched to facilitate the creation of new products, services and jobs in the South West region. It has transformed Kerry into a globally connected digital technology innovation, enterprise and skillset hotspot boosting economic growth. It runs numerous programmes including hackathons which resulted in Augmented Reality Apps for Kerry tourism; a STEM passport programme whose graduates gain a bonus of 50 Leaving Cert points; and ongoing supports for scaling companies to attract investment and create jobs.
In total, 22 town and community digital projects were recognised at this year’s .IE Digital Town Awards 2023 – winners and runners-up across the seven main categories, three special category winners and one overall prize winner.
Oonagh McCutcheon, National Director, .IE Digital Town Programme said ‘The quality of entries in this year’s .IE Digital Town Awards has been incredibly impressive. Ireland’s towns and communities are identifying and solving connectivity challenges, driving digital innovation and developing creative digital solutions to enhance the lives of their fellow citizens. This year 22 projects were recognised at the .IE Digital Town Awards Gala event, which add significantly to the lives of their local communities and improves our nation’s digital footprint.’
Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Neale Richmond said “I want to congratulate all the winners of this year’s .IE Digital Town Awards. The 22 groups honoured at this year’s awards are great examples of how by embracing digitalisation, even small groups can make a big difference to their local communities, friends and neighbours. Congratulations again to all the winners, and thank you to every group that entered this year’s awards.”
Representing Vodafone, Sinéad Bryan, Managing Director, Vodafone Business said ‘At Vodafone, our goal is to be a connectivity and technology partner to our customers the length and breadth of Ireland. We are delighted to support the .IE Digital Town Awards 2023 which cements our commitment to powering inclusion through technology and enabling a better Ireland through use of digital.”