Yes it’s that time of year again in the TechSPARK calendar – The SPARKies is back for 2022 to celebrate everything tech in the West!
If you feel like things have come around quickly this year, you’re not wrong. Since the pandemic pushed back our 2020 awards, we’ve slowly been bringing The SPARKies back to where it belongs – the summer. We’re super excited to announce we’ll be recognising the fantastic innovations and hard work happening across the South West on Thursday 14th July, and hoping the sun will join us for the occasion.
The awards will be back in Bristol this year – you can grab yourself and your team some early bird tickets now.
2022 is also special in that it’s The SPARKies 10th birthday! As always, the tech and digital awards will be shining a light on the amazing wealth of tech and creative professionals, startups and businesses in the West of England.
We’ll be back with all your favourite awards – from shouting out the Best Place to Work in Tech to commending all the companies creating a positive impact with the Good Award and putting the spotlight on the younger generation with our FutureSPARK award to recognising years of commitment through the Lifetime Achievement award.
As always, there’s been tonnes of activity that we can’t wait to highlight. TechSPARK’s Managing Director, Ben Shorrock, says, “After such a challenging couple of year’s, it’s fantastic to be able to get the community together once again to recognise the awesome ecosystem we have here in the South West. Our region is home to so many individuals and organisations who are dedicated to creating a positive impact through tech, and we can wait to shine a light on this year’s work.”
We are also very happy to announce that The SPARKies will be headline sponsored by the amazing Huboo, the Bristol-based eCommerce fulfilment company helping retailers grow globally. We’re sure this will turn out to be the best SPARKies yet!
What to expect next
We have a few dates you can put in your diary now – on Friday 1st April we’ll be opening nominations. To remind yourself, here are our 17 categories:
- FutureSPARK
- Founder/ Entrepreneur of the Year
- Best Mentor/ Advisor
- Best Digital Design
- Best Cyber Company
- Data Data Data
- Best use of Virtual or Mixed Reality
- The Hardware Award
- The ‘Good’ Award
- Most Innovative Use of Tech
- The ‘Totally Killing It’ Award
- Best Startup
- Best Scaleup
- The Community Award
- Best Place to Work in Tech
- Lifetime Achievement
- The People’s Choice
You’ll have around a month to get your nominations in, so start having a think about your favourite startups, outstanding uses of VR, dedicated mentors and the best examples of tech for good in the West of England. And remember, you can nominate yourself or your own business too!
We’re hosting a VIP invite-only nomination party in early April to kick off the awards, bringing together the best founders, enablers and ecosystem leaders in the West to nominate for the forthcoming judging round.
Early bird tickets are officially available from today – be quick as there are only a few up for grabs.
We’ll have more information on the venue, voting for the People’s Choice and eventually the longlist & shortlist. It’s been a great decade growing alongside our amazing tech and digital community, and we’re looking forward to partying in person once again this July – see you there!
If you’d like to be a sponsor or find out more about the SPARKies please drop us a note at hello@techspark.co
