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Photos: Australia's IT leaders crowned at Benchmark Awards 2018

Meet the biggest tech success stories of the past year.

on Feb 21 2018 11:45AM

The class of '18. iTnews crowned the winners of this year's Benchmark Awards at a gala dinner on Tuesday night at Melbourne's Grand Hyatt, in partnership with Adapt Ventures' CIO Edge.

The event kicked off with panel sessions that provided an insight into the finalist projects in each of the nine Benchmark Awards categories. Pictured are the finalists in the consumer category: Jason Blackman representing Carsales for its Cyclops project, Kevin Stafford from Rugby Australia for its high-performance analytics initiative, and EB Games'Kevin Clarke for its ecommerce migration.

The finalists discussed their different approaches to innovation - Carsales is a big advocate of hackathons, from which a number of its products, including Cyclops, have spawned. With smaller IT teams, Rugby Australia and EB Games partner strategically to access the skills they need for particular projects.

The education finalists (LtR): Ann Walters representing the University of Newcastle, Shawn Laffan on behalf of Griffith University, and Deakin University's William Confalonieri.

The finalists discussed how Australia was faring in terms of innovation in the education sector on the global stage - quite well - as well as what more needs to be done. They highlighted the role artificial intelligence and machine learning are expected to play in the provision of education in the near future.

The federal government finalists, with moderator and iTnews editorial director Steve Kiernan (LtR): Cameron Gough representing Australia Post for its Digital ID project, Alex Lee from the Department of Veterans Affairs for MyService, and the National Library's David Wong for its digital library infrastructure replacement (DLIR).

The finalists discussed the impact a few recent high-profile government IT failures had had on their appetite for innovation - all agreed it had made government organisations somewhat more reluctant to tackle technology transformation. But they pointed out that this doesn't mean innovation isn't occuring - agencies are just being a little bit more quiet about it.

The finance and legal finalists (LtR): Gary Adler for Minter Ellison, Paul Sofronoff for Suncorp, and Ani Paul for ING.

The panellists discussed the big investments companies within their sectors have made into their core IT platforms in recent years, and what that would mean for the ability to differentiate: when everyone is on the same level playing field in terms of their infrastructure, how do you stand out? According to the finalists, it's all about the customer experience.

The healthcare finalists, with iTnews editorial director Steven Kiernan (LtR): ACT Health's Peter O'Halloran, Catholic Healthcare's Corey Snell, and Thomas Holt's George Lymbers.

The internet of things is making headway into the healthcare sector due to the amount and type of data that can be collected on patients to better provide care. But are patients happy to have devices collecting such troves of their personal data? According to the panellists, the key is in communicating the benefits: all say they have had no pushback from patients because the insights - and therefore levels of care - this type of data collection can provide are clear.

The industrial finalists (LtR): Anna Bird from Momentum Energy, Sydney Water's Raymond Llave, and Gavin Wood from Newcrest Mining. The finalists revealed the extent to which their customers are shaping and driving their IT strategy - users are demanding the same level of service and insights as they receive from technology providers.

State and local government finalists Krissie Auld from the NSW Department of Planning and Environment, and City of Melbourne's Colin Fairweather. The finalists revealed the extent to which governments at all levels are sharing IP and strategies in order to provide the best digital services to their users.

Steve Hodgkinson, representing state and local government finalist the Department of Health and Human Services Victoria, is at the forefront of these sharing activities: Fairweather revealed he had "borrowed" Hodgkinson's "platform plus agile" approach for use within his own organisation.

The inaugural rising star finalists, with moderator and iTnews editor Allie Coyne; Josh Simmons from Metro South Hospital and Health Service, Gaurav Singh from Energy Australia, and Ross Stuart from Superchoice. The three discussed how they had mastered skill sets in completely new areas to become experts in their chosen fields.

The telco and media finalists, with iTnews editorial director Steven Kiernan (LtR): Phillip Britt from Aussie Broadband, REA Group's Jeremy Burton, and Mat Yelavich from Nine.

All three projects were focused on speed - whether that was to allow fast churn in the case of Aussie Broadband, to get insights into media buying activity as with Nine, or to speed up the purchase of a new home, as with REA Group. The finalists discussed what attaining that speed had meant for their underlying infrastructure.

Richard Palmer from Ovum, Department of Education Victoria's Elizabeth Wilson, and Kerrie Campbell from Flinders University.

Australia Post's Daniel Reynolds, Cameron Gough, and Simone Davidge.

Kiran Rewal from AIG Australia, Mike Kovacevic from Catholic Education WA, and Jim McBride from Catholic Healthcare.

City of Melbourne's Jacqueline Simmons, Simon Weller, and Stacey O'Toole.

The Department of Health and Human Services Victoria's Ray Baird, Bhumika Wadhera, and Steve Hodgkinson.

The Department of Veterans Affairs' Tim Britton, the National Library's David Wong and Alex Kemp, and DVA's Alex Lee.

EB Games'Peter Watts, Asher Wildeboer, Kevin Clarke, and Will Sessions from Ridley.

ING's Ani Paul and Dominic Keyzer.

Rising star finalist Josh Simmons (centre) of Metro South Hospital and Health Service, with Nadine Simmons (left) and MSHHS'James Foxall (right).

Lina Lim from the National Stock Exchange and Alfred Health's Ann Larkins.

Emma Bartleet, Gavin Wood, and Suzanne Boothey from Newcrest Mining.

Nine's Mat Yelavich and Stephen Kyefulumya (left and right), with iTnews editorial director Steven Kiernan (centre).

The Nine team celebrate their win.

Andrew Ward from HP, Krissie Auld from the NSW Department of Planning and Environment, Elizabeth Vega from Informed Solutions, and Serge Nesvadba from HP.

Jan Rudnick from PRGX, Murray Heke from Seqwater, and Tom Lewis from Anaplan Australia.

The Superchoice team on hand to celebrate rising star finalist Ross Stuart (third from left): Paul Danaher, Gordon Williamson, Sanjeev Arora, Andy Johnson, Ian Gibson, and Stuart Greenwood.

Sydney Water's Inderjit Batra and Raymond Llave (far left and far right), and IBRS' Joe Sweeney (middle left) and City of Melbourne's Colin Fairweather (middle right).

OneView Healthcare's Mark McCloskey, Natalie Burge from Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, and Thomas Holt's George Lymbers and Nithia Nagan.

Nine brought an appropriate nine members of its IT team to celebrate the company's win for the telco and media IT project of the year, awarded for 9Galaxy.

Carsales'CIO Jason Blackman (centre) brought Agustinus Nalwan with him to accept the award for consumer IT project of the year - Nalwan was responsible for creating the Cyclops image recognition tool that was recognised with the award. (Also pictured: iTnews editorial director Steven Kiernan).

Energy Australia architect Gaurav Singh was named the iTnews Benchmark Awards inaugural rising star. Singh went from being a support resource at the energy provider to the top JAPAC Oracle database administrator - so named by Oracle - within just 18 months.

Australia's Post Cameron Gough and Daniel Reynolds accept their award, with Michael Percival from category sponsor Nutanix, for the federal government category, won for the Digital ID identity verification project.

The NSW Department of Planning and Environment took out the state government IT project of the year award. Pictured are Krissie Auld from the NSW Planning, Ron Avery from the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, and Elizabeth Vega and Michael Power from partner Informed Solutions, and Daryn Vanstone from category sponsor Civica.

ACT Health's CIO Peter O'Halloran accepts the award for healthcare IT project of the year for the agency's barcodes for blood initiative.

Finance IT project of the year winners Vlad Vereshchagin and Paul Sofronoff representing Suncorp, for its AI-based claims processing program. (Also pictured: iTnews editor Allie Coyne and iTnews editorial director Steven Kiernan).

Deakin University's William Confalonieri accepts the award for education IT project of the year for the institution's Genie initiative.

Sydney Water's Inderjit Batra and Raymond Llave accept the award for industrial IT project of the year for their customer hub initiative.

Deakin University, represented by CDO William Confalonieri (middle), was awarded the overall Australian IT project of the year - or the gold Benchmark - for its Genie platform. Highly commended for the overall award was Australia Post for Digital ID. (Also pictured: iTnews editorial director Steven Kiernan and iTnews editor Allie Coyne.)

The class of '18. iTnews crowned the winners of this year's Benchmark Awards at a gala dinner on Tuesday night at Melbourne's Grand Hyatt, in partnership with Adapt Ventures' CIO Edge.

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