Awarding Excellence: Announcing the Winners of the 2021 Leeds Digital Festival Awards

Last Wednesday evening the prestigious Leeds Digital Festival Awards returned to the city, celebrating Leeds’ best and brightest digital minds.

Hosted in partnership by Amsource and Ward Hadaway, each year the LDF Awards recognise the wealth of talent within the city and celebrate all that the Leeds digital sector has to offer – and the 2021 Awards were no different, with 45 of Leeds tech’s best organisations and individuals nominated across 9 categories.

Following the Awards’ brief physical hiatus in 2020, organisers were keen to see the Awards return in-person this year, and on Wednesday evening over 300 of Leeds digitals biggest players descended on the Belgrave Music Hall to see who would emerge victorious.

“The Leeds Digital Festival Awards are community awards, focussed on highlighting all that is great about the tech scene in the Leeds city region.  Always free to enter and free to attend, they shine a spotlight on the companies, products, innovation and people in the sector for all that they have achieved over the previous year.  We’re in changing times and the last 12-18 months have been challenging, but amongst this there have been some huge successes and we can’t wait for these stories to be told at the 2021 LDF Awards.”

Andrew Maeer, Founder & CEO of Amsource

And the winners are…

• Lyric Jain – Entrepreneur of the Year sponsored by the University of Leeds – For the business leader who inspires innovation with the drive to make ideas become a reality, driving their team to success.

• Anju George – One to Watch 2021 sponsored by LITTLE – For the team player with big ambitions who goes above and beyond to do themselves, their team and their company proud. This is an award for a team member up to Manager level, not a CEO.

• iatro – Start-Up of the Year sponsored by AD:VENTURE – This award celebrates the hard work and success of tech and digital start-ups in Leeds and the city region who have shown the best innovations and/or company growth. Nominated companies will be incorporated after 2019.

• Force24 – Growth Company of the Year sponsored by Marsh Commercial – The award for the tech business showing the most growth in the last 12 months through their success, driving increases in headcount and / or turnover.

• GAMSTOP & The Data Shed – Tech4Good sponsored by SCC – The person, organisation or technology that is delivering positive change within communities or the environment and making the world a better place.

• The Data Shed – Best Tech Place to Work sponsored by Crisp – The company doing the most for their employees through training, development and innovative working practices in the tech / digital community.

• Digital Access West Yorkshire (DAWY) – Diversity and Inclusion Award sponsored by Panintelligence – This award celebrates those individuals, organisations or initiatives pushing the boundaries for diversity & inclusion in the tech community in Leeds. Please outline how you are changing Leeds for the better through inclusion for all in tech, and/or driving the diversity agenda.

• incuto – 2020-2021 Thrive Award sponsored by BJSS – The last 12-18 months have been ‘different’, shall we say. And whilst there have been significant challenges, some businesses have thrived. This award celebrates those businesses who have pivoted, grown their teams, impacted their markets or driven innovation to new heights in their sector during Covid times.

• Burendo – International Award sponsored by Sedulo – A new award for 2021, this award celebrates the Leeds tech businesses who have achieved significant success outside the UK. This could be launching a product into a new market or building a team in a different time zone, to winning clients on a global scale.

Congratulations to all the deserving winners, and all the wonderful organisations who made it to the shortlisting stage – Leeds truly has an incredible digital ecosystem that we couldn’t be prouder to support.

And as always, the biggest thank you goes to Amsource and Ward Hadaway for all the time and hard work they put into organising the LDF Awards each year, and for their ongoing efforts to highlight and champion the city region’s best tech talent.