In the year that the Irish Software Association celebrates its 30th Anniversary, ChangingWorlds has won the overall Company of the Year Awards at a glitzy black-tie ceremony in the Mansion House last night.

There was great anticipation as the the shortlist was read out (which included Altobridge, Globoforce, Helix Health, Openet, Rockall Technologies, Singularity, Thirdforce and Zenith), and jubilant scenes as ChangingWorlds, based in NovaUCD, were announced as winners by Myra Garrett, Managing Partner of William Fry, co-sponsors of the awards with Software Skillnet and Enterprise Ireland.

The evening had begun hours earlier with a champagne reception attended by over 400 of the Irish software and web industries most notable guests of 2008. After the opening reception was called to order, the main event, hosted by sports presenter Des Cahill, began with a splendid dinner.

A special mention was made of second level students Adam Keilthy and Conor Scully from Sutton Park Secondary school for their research project that makes websites colour-blind accessible. The students have won the technology category in the Irish BT Young Scientist Competition and first in the overall Northern Irish BT Young Scientist competition.  The boys will now go on to the overall UK BT YS competition.

Following an introduction to honour the eighteen people who have held the post of ISA Chairmen over the last 30 years the first award to be announced was a student medal sponsored by SkillNet to Conor Gaffney of Trinity College, Dublin for the most commercially viable piece of research.

Colllaboration and Technical Innovation Awards

The second winner of the evening was Cork based Qumas Software who beat, Globoforce, Helix Health and IBM for the Collaboration award, then Openet who won, despite tough competition from Albatat, Dotmobi, E-spatial, IBM, Mapflow, Openet, Realex Payments, the Technical Innovation Award.

Sales Achievement Award

It  turned out to be a fully packed week for Singularity who won the Sales Achievement of the Year award. Earlier in the week the Derry and Belfast company announced 62 new jobs in the North (Read Full Story) a £3.5million investment on foot of achieving outstanding sales globally. The award was collected by Marketing Manager Michael White.

New Company of the Year Award

Every award is prestigious, and it is a great achievement even to be shortlisted. The 'New Company of the Year' award, however is arguably one of the best achievements because these companies have come a long long way in a very short space of time - it is a fairly good indicator of the accolades to follow.

This years award was shortlisted as Cork's Louder Voice founded by Conor O'Neill, Contrast from Dublin, Albatat (who were also nominated in the Technical Innovation category), Muzu and Sentry. Waterford based Muzu TV came out as winners.

They produce a website dedicated to music including music videos, documentaries, TV shows, interviews, behind the scenes, tutorials and loads of exclusive and rare footage. Users can also create their very own free personalised music TV  Channel which can be shared with friends by embedding on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo etc. Already hundreds of International labels, thousands of artists and weeks of footage are available to watch. Muzu TV's success is a result of a revenue share with the bands and artists via an advertising.

Company of the Year Award

Presenting ChangingWorlds with the the Company of the Year Award, Myra Garrett, Managing Partner of William Fry, said of the sector “William Fry is actively involved in and committed to Ireland's IT sector and we are delighted to be involved in the ISA awards.  The calibre and quality of entrants is again excellent, demonstrating our positioning as Europe’s premier location for software development."  

She continued "Ireland has  developed a thriving indigenous software development industry and I have no doubt that this will continue in spite of the economic downturn.”

ISA Special Software Person of the Award

There was one more surprise when ISA also honoured Peter MacManamon with the prestigious Software Person of the Year Award.  Peter has been a champion for software SMEs lobbying extensively for the removal of restrictive procurement practices in the public sector, increases in the Business Expansion and Seed Capital schemes and changes to the education system to address the uptake of honours maths.

Director of the ISA, Shane Dempsey concluded the event by saying “The companies celebrated tonight demonstrates the ability of Irish companies to achieve global success.  Indigenous software companies will increasingly play a greater role in creating value for the Irish economy. "

Dempsey closing words "Over the last thirty years, the ISA has facilitated software companies in achieving their global ambitions.  We now believe that the serial entrepreneurs, those people who have built a number of businesses, are the key to real economic growth in the sector.  In the coming year we will be working closely to harness their experience to grow companies of international scale”

To See Full Shortlist Click here

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