Speaking about the awards, Polly Purvis, CEO of ScotlandIS said: These awards are a brilliant way to celebrate the growth and success of our industry over the last twelve months. They recognise the hard graft and team work behind these exceptional businesses, and highlight the increasing importance of the digital technologies industry to Scotland.

Special recognition for Gareth Williams

The ceremony began with a special recognition award dedicated to Gareth Williams from Skyscanner, in acknowledgement of his pivotal role within the Scottish technology landscape. Skyscanner has become synonymous with start-up success, following a rapid growth trajectory culminating with the recent sale to Ctrip for £1.4 bn.
Williams was praised not only for his achievements in creating, scaling and steering a successful business, but in his continued commitment to reinvest in the nest wave of start-ups, and help drive the future success from within the Scottish ecosystem.

Skyscanner also scooped two further company awards, winning the best B2C category and best investment deal accolades.

Award winners

Other winners from the evening spanned a wide range of categories and industry verticals from Digital Marketing to Fintech. HotDocs picked up two awards, the first for international tech star, and the second for small business of the year. As did StormID, taking digital agency of the year and best public sector service.

Further awards went to FreeAgent for best financial service product, Aggreko for transformational innovation from data, and Nucleus for the best B2B product.

It was also positive to see two of the awards going to CodeBase and DataLab, both publicly funded initiatives created with a goal to help support industry and capitalise on the socio-economic opportunities from technology. While the latter was ostensibly an individual award, Gillian made clear in her speech the ethos that “this is a team sport”.
The event was a hugely positive occasion and many of the recipients used their acceptance speech to declare their continued faith in the Scottish tech ecosystem.

“The tech industry in Scotland has a very bright future” – Roan Lavery, Co-Founder, FreeAgent
“There is so much innovation and entrepreneurial talent…We go up against huge multinationals and we beat them” – Scot Leckie, CTO HotDocs

The opportunities are certainly there, and in certain facets Scotland really is punching above its weight on the global stage.

The awards offered a great testament to some of the individuals, organisations, and innovations that are taking place across Scotland. But the technology market is predicated on the requirement for continuous improvement and in this regard it is also a time to reflect on the future.

It was notable from conversations over the course of the evening that the skills shortage is still a major challenge; while a number of the initiatives that have been put in place are making an impact there is still progress to be made.

The recent ScotlandIS Industry report made clear that the skills shortage remains the single most debilitating challenge facing the sector and while there have been pockets of progress there needs to be a wider, more concerted effort if this is to be redressed.

A number of speakers referenced the fact that Scotland is a country of innovators and that this legacy is alive and well in our thriving tech sector. But there is more to be done if we are to firmly stamp ourselves on the global map and create the next crop of Skyscanners. Silicon Valley did not establish its reputation from isolated success stories and it is this continued pipeline of innovative companies to which we must aspire.

To this end, it was good to see organisations like FreeAgent, HotDocs and Neucleus getting recognition for their continued ascent. Malzee too are worthy of an honary mention, and while they did not take home any awards, they received nominations in three different categories and continue to show 50% year on year growth. Hopefully we will see these scale-ups continue to grow and develop and follow in the footsteps of Williams and Skyscanner in the years to come.

Full list of nominees and winners from the evening below:

2017 Digital Awards

Best B2B Technology Product or Service – sponsored by: Head Resourcing

Nominees:
Aggreko
HotDocs
Nucleus

Winner – Nucleus

Best B2C Technology Product or Service

Nominees:
Make It Social
Mallzee
Skyscanner

Winner – Skyscanner

International technology star

Nominees:
DotScot
HotDocs
Senshi Digital

Winner – Hotdocs

Best Financial Services Product or Service – sponsored by: Avaloq

Nominees:
FreeAgent
ShareIn

Winner – FreeAgent

Best public sector product or service

Nominees:
Informed Solutions
StormID

Winner – StormID

Best education provider or training programme

Nominees:
CodeClan
Digital Xtra Fund
The Data Lab

Winner – CodeClan

Outstanding Marketing Performance by a Tech Company

Nominees:
Digitonic
Nucleus
Senshi Digital

Winner – Digitonic

Investment Deal of the Year – sponsored by: Net Talent

Nominees:
Incremental
Skyscanner

Winner – Skyscanner

Transformational Innovation Through Data – sponsored by : The Data Lab

Nominees:
Aggreko
Exmos
Mallzee

Winner – Aggreko

Digital Agency of the Year – sponsored by: Search Consultancy

Nominees:
Digital Six
Screenmedia
StormID

Winner – StormID

CEO of the Year – sponsored by: Atkinson Macleod Executive Search

Nominees:
David Fergusson – Nucleus
Gareth Williams – Skyscanner
Gillian Docherty – The Data Lab

Winner – Gillian Docherty

Small – Medium Digital Tech Business of the Year – sponsored by: Cathcart Associates

Nominees:
HotDocs
Mallzee
SwarmOnline

Winner – HotDocs

Large Digital Tech Business of the Year – sponsored by: EY

Nominees:
Edge Testing Solutions
FreeAgent

Winner – Edge Testing