WITSA Global ICT Excellence Award Winners 2023
The World Innovation, Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) have announced the recipients of the 2023 Global Innovation and Tech Excellence Awards, with three techUK members among the winners.
Initiated 20 years ago, at the 2000 World Congress on IT in Taipei, WITSA awards select the most impactful and innovative candidates from over 80 countries. They recognize the entities that have either made, or hold the highest promise to make, the most significant contributions in the use of technology to better the lives of humankind as judged from the entries received in 2023.
This year, techUK members have been recognised on a global scale, winning in three of the awards. We are excited to congratulate our members who have been recognised in this year’s awards:
- Skenario Labs - 2023 Smart Cities Award (Private Sector/NGO)
- BT Group – 2023 Public/Private Partnership Award
- Informed Solutions/Joint Air Quality Unit (JAQU) – 2023 Sustainable Growth Award/Circular Economy Award (Public Sector)
Commenting on this year’s results, Julian David, techUK’s CEO, said:
“It’s a very proud moment for techUK to have three of its members recognised at a global level for these vitally important tech for good initiatives. Our members are at the forefront of developing innovative technologies to meet the most pressing challenges we face today. This year’s winners showcase how the application of tech to the wider economy and our public services has huge potential rewards and are a testament to the competitiveness of the UK’s technology sector. I would like to congratulate BT, Informed Solutions and Skenario Labs who have won this year’s awards."
Speaking about this year’s awards, WITSA Chairman Dr Sean Seah said:
“The Judging committee for the 2023 Global Innovation and Tech Excellence Awards had the honor of reviewing over 130 unique and remarkable award submissions. I would also like to congratulate all of the winners for the superb job that they are doing in bringing the benefits of digital technology to citizens, governments, industries and communities engaged in virtually every human endeavor."
2023 Smart Cities Award (Private Sector/NGO) – Skenario Labs – Skenarios Real Estate
Skenario Labs is a Machine Learning business, offering insights into residential and commercial building portfolios on the journey to net zero. Their advanced analysis engine creates virtual representation of buildings, assessing energy usage, carbon intensity, and value. They empower clients to make informed decisions for sustainable and optimized portfolios through data-driven solutions.
Skenariolabs build individual building models for every single building across a city. They take into account local building archetypes (what are they made of? How are they built?), as well as localized weather, costs, energy grid and demographics in order to provide insights on how to best decarbonize whole portfolios. They collaborated with Arup to develop a virtual representation of several thousand properties across three major UK cities. This model included multiple building types and provided a solid baseline for further iterationand scenario analysis. We ran several scenarios focusing on three intervention types:
- A deep retrofit requiring a significant change to the buildings.
- A light retrofit that would not require massive alteration.
- A do-minimum to investigate a baseline.
By utilizing Skenarios Real Estate and combining our platform and modeling with Arup’s expertise they were able to deliver high-quality analysis for their clients and have since expanded collaboration to additional projects with central and local Governments around the UK. Skenarios Real Estate allows property data to be collected, collated, and analyzed quickly. It can also provide a set of derived assumptions where data was not available and which can then be updated or replaced.
2023 Public/Private Partnership Award – BT Group: Virtual Wards Program
Virtual wards give U.K. patients access to the healthcare services they need remotely, safely and conveniently, outside of a hospital setting. This follows BT research that found 74% of NHS staff agree that technology helps to deliver better quality care, while the current standard of technology at work is a source of stress for 49%* BT’s virtual wards program is delivered in partnership with pioneering healthcare technology companies, such as Feebris, alongside the creation of its own solutions. From smart devices that monitor health conditions like COPD and heart disease, to AI-backed software that enables clinicians to perform virtual ward rounds, the new solutions are now available for BT’s customers in the healthcare sector.
One of BT’s new digital health partners, Feebris, will help deliver virtual ward and virtual care solutions through its virtual care platform, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enable community healthcare professionals and patients to capture reliable health information in real time and assess the risk of conditions worsening quickly. The technology is used across care homes, community nursing and virtual wards. The roll-out of the new virtual wards, virtual care and digital health programme, is delivered by BT’s dedicated healthcare team, led by in-house healthcare professionals and guided by an external Clinical Advisory Board.
2023 Sustainable Growth Award/Circular Economy Award (Public Sector) - Joint Air Quality Unit (JAQU) for Improving the UK’s Air Quality
The GOV.UK ‘Drive in a Clean Air Zone’ service has enabled citizens and businesses to understand whether they would be charged for driving in a CAZ ahead of CAZ’s being launched and, if they were, identifying proactive actions they could take to avoid this. Enabled citizens to easily pay any charges that are due, either before or after they travel into a CAZ. It has also allowed JAQU/DVLA to secure a wealth of operational data that they can use to evaluate, inform, and optimize the implementation of clean air policy, now and in the future.
Working together, Informed Solutions and JAQU continue to successfully support, maintain, and continually improve the CAZ Service. The first Clean Air Zones were launched in 2021 and the solution is playing a vital role in improving the quality of the air we breathe. Several services are already live, including the Vehicle Compliance Checker – a national GOV.UK service used by motorists to determine if they will be charged for driving into a CAZ. 61 Local Authorities are involved in the program, with Bath and Birmingham having already launched CAZ schemes, with a further 7 cities following their example. This scalable infrastructure and service has the potential to be rolled out internationally for smart city and sustainable environmental initiatives.