2017 NSW Award
The 2017 NSW Pearcey Tech Entrepreneur of the Year was awarded to Airtasker co-founders Tim Fung and Jonathan Lui. Several other Awards were presented in a packed PowerHouse Museum on Tuesday October 24. The Pearcey award was presented by Chairman of Jobs for NSW and Chair of CSIRO David Thodey.
After presenting the awards, Mr Thodey commented:
It was a great night and wonderful to see the quality of the entrepreneurs and next generation coming through. The Pearcey Foundation and the ACS need to be congratulated for the incredible work they have done over many years to promote and celebrate great innovation and entrepreneurship in our Australian ICT industry.
Celebrating Entrepreneurship
The evening celebrated ICT entrepreneurship in NSW in 2017 at three levels:
- Entrepreneurs - which recognises outstanding tech entrepreneurs in NSW for "taking a risk", "making a difference" and "being an inspiration".
- Tertiary Students and Researchers - who participated in a pitching competition where they pitch their business plans and ideas before a panel of industry judges.
- High Schools students - Winners of the Young ICT Explorers (YICTE) competition held in NSW schools presented their projects
Previous winners of the awards, held since 1999, are a "who's who" of almost 100 talented entrepreneurs including the founders of Atlassian, Big Commerce, WiseTech Global, Campaign Monitor, Freelancer, Google Maps, MenuLog, PC Tools, Society One and Vocus to name but a few.
Overall Winner
NSW Pearcey winners 2017: Tim Fung and Jonathan Lui of AirTasker
The 2017 Pearcey Tech Entrepreneur of the Year was awarded to Airtasker co-founders Tim Fung and Jonathan Lui.
Airtasker is an Australian services marketplace allowing people to outsource chores and errands to people in their local neighbourhood community. Fung and Lui are also co-founders of Sydney-based Tank Stream Labs, Australia's largest co-working space for tech start-ups.
Hall of Fame
Photo: NSW Pearcey 2017 Hall of Fame members, accompanied by Wayne Fitzsimmons (Chair Pearcey Foundation), David Thodey (Chair CSIRO) and Dr Julia Prior (UTS)
The following NSW entrepreneurs were induced into the Hall of Fame for "taking a risk", "making a difference" and "being an inspiration":
- Jonathan Barouch, founder of Local Measure
- Beau Bertoli and Greg Moshal, joint CEOs at Prospa
- Jane Cay, owner of Birdsnest
- Danny Gilligan and Paul McCarney of Data Republic
- Marta Higuera and Zoe Pointon, co-founders of OpenAgent.
Pitching Competition
Photo: Entrants in the Pearcey NSW Pitching competition, with Richard White of WiseTechGlobal
Students from 5 NSW based Universities participated in a pitching competition.
The winner was RoboMotion from the University of Wollongong, co-founded by Andrew Short, Nathan Larkin and Zangxi Pan.
Second place went to Rapid Phenotyping from the University of Newcastle, presented by Anthony Martin.
Third place went to Geoff Bullen of Wallsync from UTS.
Young ICT Explorers
Photo: Young ICT Explorer presenters, with Liz Jakubowski of CSIRO and Rory Cunningham of the ASX.
Winners of the school Young ICT Explorers Competition give presentations of their projects
- Declan Hofmeyr, Rhys Hibbert, Trent Farris and Jackson Jones from Wahroonga Public School (Year 4)
- Callum Predavec from Mosman High School, Year 12 and
- Kira Macarthur, Year 7, SHEN
NSW Organising Committee
- Charles Lindop (Co Chair)
- Phil McCrea (Co Chair)
- Roch Van Delft (ACS)
- Aimee Stewart (ACS)
- Brendan Elliott (Jobs for NSW)
- Len Rust (Rust Report)
- Jeri Childers (UTS)
- Anthony Woodward (Bulletproof)
- Simon Foster (Squirrel Street )
- Jo Burston (Rare Birds)
- Katie Rowe (CSIRO)
- Martin Aungle (Explore Comms)
For more information on the NSW Pearcey Awards please call co-chairs
- Phil McCrea (0411 102 548), or
- Charles Lindop (0419 224 214)
Sponsors
The NSW Pearcey committee would like to thank the following generous sponsors:
