More than 100 guests celebrated the achievements of technology innovators in Bermuda at the Bermuda Technology Innovation Awards.

The event was being held for the thirteenth year, and is part of the Bermuda Tech Week. The awards were presented at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club.

Created to recognise the outstanding achievements being made in information technology in Bermuda and to motivate and encourage more development of the sector through academic, industry and charitable pursuits, the awards were held by the Department of ICT Policy and Innovation.

Guests gave a standing ovation to 16-year-old Kairo Morton who took top honours for the creation of his wearable device Silent Savior, which alerts those who are hard of hearing when a fire alarm goes off.

Others capturing TechAwards in the Most Innovative Youth category were the Bermuda College/Department of Communication’s TreeFrog App Project and the Department of Energy’s Space Camp.

In a newly created category, Most Innovative Use of Technology, two new ocean centric websites, The Living Reefs Foundation and Teddy Tucker-Ocean Explorer were honoured for providing to the world with some of the most fascinating features of the waters around Bermuda.

In the former, Dr Samia Sarkis features her work in preservation and regrowth of coral reefs, and the latter Wendy Tucker, in truly remarkable innovative use of technology has digitised and posted over 4,000 classic images of the decades of ocean exploration she experienced with her father. The third awardee Dion Burgess was recognised for his Modern Gospel Beats web-based music service.

The TechAwards judging panels was impressed with the young entrepreneurs who have brought innovative technology to the grocery and food delivery niche with DropIt Delivery’s Carl Vincent and Leann Evans capturing the top award in the Local Category, and Colin Rego for his Sargasso Sea in the Mobile App Category.

Glenn Smith accepted a TechAward for Auto Solutions Touch-4-Wash App, and Adrian Lodge winning his second TechAward for the George Sommers Educational Game app.

Other winners in the Local Category have also shown innovation by bringing technology to their clients with Emergence Corporation’s Bermuda Progressive Payroll Tax Solution, David Lovell’s cutting-edge mobile customer traffic sensor device, Marketplace’s innovative website and mobile app process for “click and collect” online grocery shopping and the Bermuda e-Sports League for fostering a healthy environment for young e-gamers to compete in tournaments, learn game development, and potentially take part in this ever-growing industry.

Local programmer Dmitry Mnushkin captured the International Category for Treefrog Consulting Limited’s Foundation Platform latest software platform designed to dramatically speed up the pricing of risks for reinsurers and ILS.

The other TechAwards in that category went to Velocity Ledger Technology Ltd blockchain network API for the issuance, trading, and settlement of digital assets in Bermuda, Ambika Inc.

Bermuda IP-based business Obsidian Technologies launched to create digital GDP and foundational tech platform, and Ed Mason, CEO of Core Live Ltd. For their ultra-power saving mobile microcomputer, introduced to provide a two-fold benefit to schools, lower cost of equipment, and considerable savings in power consumption.

The first Bermuda Technology Innovation Trailblazer Award went to Stan Stalnaker, founding director of Bermudian-based Hub Culture.

After having looked throughout the world for the best location to structure a digital asset, Mr Stalnaker chose Bermuda as headquarters in 2006. The following year he launched Ven, the world’s first digital currency and the first to be traded on regulated foreign exchange markets.

Since then, he has been the leading “digital ambassador” for Bermuda, raising the flag at Hub Culture’s 25 Pavilion Events held on five continents reaching over 65,000 guests. The Hub Culture Pavilion at the World Economic Forum in Davos has repeatedly featured the Bermuda delegation at its town hall meetings.

Key among these events is Liquidity — the Summit on new finance which was held, for the fifth time, on Tuesday in Bermuda. It attracted more than 100 attendees from seven countries.

The awards evening ended with a reception for these international delegates and the Bermudians attending the ceremony.

Addressing the awards audience, David Burt, the Premier, said: “We are seeing more and more Bermudians embracing technology and building businesses utilising technology. We have all seen recent innovations with online services and mobile applications that are making our country more efficient and creating new jobs. These technology-based entrepreneurial activities are the types of initiatives that the Government will continue to promote.”

Mentioning the Sargasso Sea app, he said: “Three weeks after they launched this past January, they more than doubled their deliveries and saw a number of businesses reaching out to them, wanting to be a part of their platform. They have over 50 part-time employees and are enjoying steady growth as a business.”

Mr Burt said the Government is committed to technology.

“That is why we have invested heavily in promoting technology and making sure that we have fintech training that is available to every single Bermudian resident free of charge on line.

“That is the reason why we have our coding boot-camp where 12 Bermudians are learning coding. That is the reason why we are investing in additional facilities at the Bermuda College to make sure that we can be ready for the technology future.”