Excellence in people, process and technology recognised by 2021 it@cork Leader Awards
PFH, it@cork Tech Person of the Year 2021: Cork County Mayor, Gillian Coughlan; Award sponsor, Denis Canty of Altada; Paul Hourican of PFH, it@cork Tech Person of the Year 2021 award winner; and Gillian Bergin, chair of it@cork. Photos: Ger McCarthy
It’s been a busy few weeks for it@cork in the run-up to their annual Leaders Awards, which saw nine awards being presented to standout organisations, individuals and teams across the region.Â
Paul Hourican of PFH was awarded Tech Person of the Year after being selected by the it@cork Executive Board for his commitment to developing and growing the tech sector in the region consistently throughout his career.Â
Hourican started PFH Technologies in 1985 with one employee and has grown the business to a turnover of €160m with more than 700 employees — he said his ambition all those years ago was to be the biggest IT Company in Munster. Now Chairman of Ireland's largest IT Company and one of the leading suppliers to Government, Semi-State, Multinational and indigenous businesses in Ireland and across the globe, Hourican says the company’s growth is due to "the commitment of its management and employees".
Other Award-winners included Trustap, who received the Scale Up of the Year award for their Safe Escrow-Style Payment Platform which acts as a safety net for buyers and sellers.Â
Founded in Cork in 2017, Trustap is growing quickly with 25 employees, and offices in Ireland, the UK and the US. They have had an incredible 24 months, reacting quickly to the pandemic in terms of operations and taking the business remote. They impressed judges by not just their current business pipeline but the areas they’re exploring and thinking of expanding into.
Clearstream Global Securities Services (CGSS), a subsidiary of Deutsche Börse Group, was recognised as the Multinational of the Year for 2021.Â
An important player in the securities services industry they have some 480 employees located in Cork which is their largest operational centre for investment funds. Their influential role in the wider global Clearstream business was a key factor in the judges’ decision to award them the MNC of the year award – including their Albert AI tool. In addition their ambition to further expand their capacity and breadth of support to the wider business is inspiring.Â
BioMarin were awarded the Smart Technology Innovation award for adapting technology in a ground-breaking way that delivers real value and innovative design.Â
They conceptualised, designed, built and implemented a technical design called SafeTrace as a way to ensure adherence to workplace COVID protections such as social distancing and contact tracing, while keeping workers, products and patients safe. The innovation displayed a profound level of entrepreneurial thinking from the IT team in BioMarin.
The it@cork Skillnet Best Workplace award was awarded to Cloudera. Having impressed the judges with their passionate belief in people being the single most important aspect of their operation and their success, they demonstrated compelling initiatives to foster openness and inclusion.Â
Their innovative ideas around staff welfare and mental health have been implemented in the Cork office to combine with existing global initiatives.
Excellence in social impact saw the Diversity, Inclusion and Social Impact award go to Wisetek for their most recent offering — Wisetekstore.com, which takes used devices and re-purposes them through repair, refurbish or recycle, standing by their 0% to landfill policy.Â
This entire company is about social impact and they have made it into a viable business with many customers and partners benefitting from their expertise and commitment to the circular economy. They attribute their success to the passion of their staff in the purpose of Wisetek and the impact of what they do.Â
Tech Start Up of the Year was awarded to Limerick-based WrxFlo. Wrxflo stood out to the judging panel due to the incredible resilience shown during the greatest impact of the Covid-19 crisis, using the opportunity to re-focus their business on delivering a world-class service to a small number of strategic clients.
 This strategy has proven to be very successful with those clients rolling out Wrxflo globally and becoming evangelists for the technology, leading to new customers and a strong pipeline of sales for 2022.
Nagle Community College was announced as the winner of the Excellence in Education award, winning €5,000 to promote STEM activities within their school for teachers and students.Â
The judges in this category were highly impressed by the energetic, engaging and passionate team they met who left them in no doubt that their persistence and collaboration got them through COVID-19 to achieve great heights.
Speaking about the awards, Gillian Bergin said: “Despite a tough year, economically, professionally and personally, for everyone, the last 12 months have seen world-class innovation and agility come out of the technology sector, in the southwest region and beyond.Â
"We were hugely impressed by the standard of this year’s submissions; their energy, passion and optimism shone through and each finalist should be immensely proud. The 2021 Leaders Awards winners and finalists exemplify the best in our sector so I’m confident the future is bright for technology in the South West.”
 it@cork Treasurer, Aiveen Hyland, who led the project team behind the event, said: “It has been my honour to oversee the awards process this year and I would like to thank all at it@cork, our sponsors and the judging panels for their time and dedication over the last few weeks and indeed to our valued members for their support and dedication throughout 2021.”Â
Special thanks also to the it@cork event sponsors — Enterprise Ireland, C.H. ROBINSON, Springboard Communications, Deloitte, TREND MICRO, KPMG, Altada, it@cork Skillnet, and Cork County Council. All awards winners received bespoke glass sculptures created by Fermoy artist Suzanne O’Sullivan.
it@cork represents the interests of the IT industry in Ireland. A not-for-profit organisation, it@cork works with academia, private sector, and state agencies to promote the region as a technology excellence hub and provides a click-and-connect ecosystem for new and established companies to connect and participate in the region.
www.itcork.ie/whats-on/leaders-awards-2021
