Last week Fourth Day Manchester headed to the ceremony for the Northern Tech Awards at the Lowry Hotel. Organised by Manoj Ranaweera at Techcelerate, the awards celebrate entrepreneurship in the North and are a great platform for the overwhelming talent across the region. As specialists in technology, we at Fourth Day obviously have a keen interest in events like the Northern Tech Awards, which is why it was great to be able to offer our support for the event – both as sponsors and as PR aides.
One of the highlights of the evening was a keynote speech from Ian Gotts who gave us the benefit of his experience in growing a tech business in the US, following the sale of his company Nimbus to TIBCO. One of the big points to emerge from Ian’s speech was the emphasis that he placed on being part of the San Francisco tech scene. While it was interesting hearing about Ian’s experience across the pond, I couldn’t help feeling that it deviated from focusing on entrepreneurship in the UK and more specifically, in the North. Shouldn’t we be thinking more about how we can nurture talent in the UK? – particularly when there were so many creative minds and businesses in the room at the awards.
The evening was a huge success with more entries than ever this year. The finalists were all bidding to take home one of the awards, across categories that included Best Enterprise Tech Company and Most Innovative Tech Company. Big winners from the night were mobile apps and solutions company Apadmi, scoring a hat trick with Best Mobile Tech Company, Fastest Growing Tech Company – Over £1m and Best North West Tech Company. Online and mobile payments company App55 took home Best Venture-Backed Early Stage Tech Company and Best Enterprise Tech Company.
Other winners included Malinko, Canddi, UK Fast and Melbourne Hosting. The evening was great fun and saw all of the finalists hugely supportive of each other, with lots of celebratory tweets flying across the room! The feeling of mutual support really stood out on the night and is indicative of the sense of community, as well as talent, that is in such good supply in the North West.
Well done to all the winners and look forward to seeing you again next year!
Share this:
