iTnews Benchmark Awards 2019: Emerging Technologies finalists revealed

The contender's field narrowing for the annual iTnews benchmark awards: this week we’ve revealed finalists in the Finance category and the Industrial sector, to go with the State Government and Local Government winners we revealed in late 2018.

Today we reveal the three finalists in the Emerging Technologies category, a new prize that celebrates users who put leading-edge tech to work and bring back big results. Without any further ado, your finalists are …

University of Newcastle dental local anesthesia virtual reality

The only thing worse than a visit to the dentist is surely a visit to a student dentist whose formative experiences of administering an anesthetic take place in your tender mouth.

Which is why Newcastle University developed a virtual reality simulator to allow its Oral Health students the chance to practice injections before they get anywhere near a real patient.

This project doesn’t just save patients pain, it also improved students’ confidence and competence, which could be the best ROI of all!

Read iTnews’ coverage of this project here.

Application transformation with Kubernetes at Reece

Plumbing supplies concern Reece has jumped into containerised software development with both feet, adopting Kubernetes to help it migrate its entire application estate into microservices.

Doing so will help it enact a strategy to use continuous deployment of applications into its 600+ retail outlets, so that staff and customers enjoy a stream of new offerings.

The project has already seen big hardware savings, deployment of code into production jump from twice a day to 40 times a day, and all with deployment times dropping from two days to under a minute.

Detailed coverage to come

Port Macquarie-Hastings Council

To deliver on its workforce engagement strategy and build a values-based culture, Port Macquarie-Hastings Council adopted virtual reality technologies to enhance the training it offers staff.

The project hasn’t just translated training into VR – the Council has develop empathy models and behavior practice scenarios to make its new immersive learning sessions stick.

The expected outcome is higher retention rates for new knowledge, and it doesn’t hurt that a regional council can show its staff it’s delivering such a leading-edge experience.

Detailed coverage to come

Finally, some housekeeping: all finalists will be contacted by the iTnews events team to explain how to attend the gala awards night.