Digitising health steals the show at Ireland’s first ever Digital Transformation Awards

The industry leaders who have pushed Ireland to be the fifth-fastest digitising economy in Europe received public recognition in July at the first ever Digital Transformation Awards.

Nearly 150 digital whizzkids and technical gurus attended the black-tie awards’ ceremony at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Santry on July 4th. Host, broadcaster and author Colm O’Regan introduced a dozen awards to winners from all sectors of Irish enterprise.

The brand-new awards from event organiser Business River are the first to recognise the huge role digitisation plays in all our lives.

The latest Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) ranks Ireland fifth of the 27 EU member states. It says Ireland’s average yearly relative growth of its DESI score between 2017 and 2022 was 8.5 per cent, one of the highest in the EU.

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Ireland ranks above the EU average for the share of:

People with basic digital skills
Those with digital content creation skills
ICT specialists

This runaway success story has been a secret for too long. The Digital Transformation Awards have fixed that and rightly congratulated the finest technical minds in the country.

The overall best digital transformation award went to a collaboration between Maynooth University, HSE Digital Transformation and SME Digital Health Ecosystem. The judges said the collaborative project significantly enhances Irish health services.

“They demonstrated impactful results and a commitment to improving public health, making them a standout winner in this category,” the judges’ citation said.

The top personal prize – the digital transformation leader award – went to Martin Curley, now Professor of innovation at Maynooth University but with a CV that would fill up most harddrives.

Curley started as a systems engineer at Philips in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, focusing on factory automation. He moved to General Electric, achieving virtual machine interoperability between factories in Columbus, Ohio and Dublin.

At silicon chipmaker Intel in Phoenix, Arizona, he co-developed an automated solution that is now used across all Intel manufacturing sites. He set up a network of IT innovation centres and the headquarters in Leixlip, in northeast Kildare, marked a big R&D investment, influencing further multinational investments in Ireland. His contributions earned him the inaugural Engineers Ireland Innovative Engineer of the Year award and a best paper award at the SIMposium conference.

Curley cofounded the Innovation Value Institute with the president of Maynooth University. This institute developed the IT Capability Maturity Framework, adopted by more than 700 organisations globally.

The judges said: “Curley’s leadership in the European Commission’s Open Innovation and Strategy Policy Group led to the creation of Open Innovation 2.0, a paradigm shift in digital innovation, recognised by a highly impactful paper in Nature.

“During the Covid-19 pandemic, he pioneered several groundbreaking digital health solutions, including remote monitoring and telehealth systems. His leadership in the Irish Digital Health Open Collaborative ecosystem has led to remarkable improvements in health outcomes and sustainability.

“He continues to influence global digital health transformation through his work with the United Nations’ General Assembly Digital Health Symposium and the Stay Left, Shift Left-10X doctrine. His contributions to the field have been profound, establishing him as a visionary leader and educator.”

Curley also accepted the award for best digital transformation – healthcare for the Innovation Value Institute at Maynooth University, underpinning a hugely successful night.

“We are one of the few countries with no centralised electronic health records. The more we delay, the more people die prematurely. Digital Health solutions allow us to leapfrog to a new era of cost-efficient care and delivery,” Curley said.

The awards were independently judged by a panel of experts. Maria Svejdar, head of marketing, communications and customer experience at international standards group GS1 Ireland, was the 2024 judging coordinator.

She said: “I think the real strength of the Digital Transformation Awards lies in their cross-sector and cross-functional appeal. There is an opportunity for any business or organisation in any sector to put forward their innovative digitalisation project for consideration and recognition.

“Often the most inspiring ideas come from outside your own familiar sphere of expertise, seeing how challenges were met by others in different areas of business.

Digital transformation is high on the agenda for most companies and organisations. Given rising costs, scarcity of resources and mounting regulatory pressures, organisations need to operate efficiently and cost-effectively in order to survive. Digital transformation of any process can help a business evolve and grow.

“The old ways of doing business – with siloed and paper-based business processes – is no longer sustainable. A revolution “from paper to glass” is vital to meet the demands for data by customers, consumers and regulators, and in a way that is efficient, accurate and timely,” Svejdar said.

“Many large-scale companies and innovative new entrepreneurs are coming up with brilliant new solutions to help businesses survive and thrive and the Digital Transformation Awards provide the ideal platform to showcase these achievements.”

Svejdar also praised the awards night itself, ironically flagging the in-person – rather than digital – nature of the evening.

“The awards night itself is a great opportunity to network with peers and to be inspired by other thought leaders. Sharing a dinner table and getting to know other judges as well as award entrants creates an opportunity for people to meet face-to-face in an increasingly online world.

“2024 was the inaugural Digital Transformation Awards. I’m excited to see this event grow in the years ahead as a platform to showcase the breadth of innovative, digital talent in Ireland today,” Svejdar said.

The award for best digital transformation – telecoms went to BT Ireland. Marcelle Cussen, BT’s senior manager, digital transformation programme, said: “This award recognises excellence in digital transformation. A successful digital transformation strategy allows companies to remain competitive, mitigate regulatory risks, provide modern technology innovation, simplify processes and deliver the best digital experience for their customers and colleagues.”

With the first year of the awards successfully archived in the digital memory banks, all eyes can now focus on making the 2025 Digital Transformation Awards even better.

Full list of judges

Maria Svejdar, head of marketing, communications and customer experience (CX), GS1 Ireland
Mathieu Brunier, global director, Aleph
Cliona Mcparland, assistant professor, Dublin City University Business School
Maeve Dwyer, owner, 2EGC
Rachael Corcoran, director, digital engagement lead, EPAM Systems
Antonio Vieira Santos, senior business intelligence and innovation evangelist, Eviden
Liz Rowen, director of marketing, Irish Life Health
Denis O’Brien, director of standards and solutions, GS1 Ireland