Bath firms operating in areas as diverse as healthcare, interactive digital content and support for games publishers were among the winners at the SPARKies – the awards celebrating the best of the region’s tech sector.
Mayden, Designability, Complete Control, Bath:Hacked and Keymailer were up against the cream of tech and digital businesses from across Bath and Bristol. 
Healthcare sector web developer Mayden scooped the People’s Choice title, selected on the night by the 300-plus guests at the glittering awards ceremony in Bath’s Komedia.
Widcombe-based Mayden specialises in innovative, flexible cloud-based software for the healthcare industry.
Designability, based at the Royal United Hospital, won the Good Award, which recognises technology that does good.
The SPARKies judges said they chose Designability because of its “highly innovative, inventive and bespoke use of hardware and software to improve quality of life and make a difference. The scale and potential for impact makes this an impressive application”.
The Best Digital Design award went to Corston-based interactive production company Complete Control for its Bits and Bricks project, which the judges described as “a wonderful design with fun characters and excellent animation. A fantastic method of teaching children to code through play”.
Complete Control has been producing interactive content for children’s media 17 years and has won two BAFTAs. Lego approached Complete Control to rework and improve its already successful Bits and Bricks programme.
Bath:Hacked, the award-winning, joint council/community initiative based in The Guild that puts open data and smart thinking at the heart of our city, walked away with the Data, Data, Data award with judges calling it “a fantastic community-led open data project”.
They continued: “The group are clearly passionate about open data and through initiatives such as Accessible Bath they are trail-blazing ways of collating and publishing data into the public domain.”
The Best Start-up title was clinched by Keymailer, also based at The Guild. The SPARKies judges said Keymailer had achieved staggering growth in the highly competitive ever-changing marketplace of gaming – reaching 20% of the market and attaining global reach.
Keymailer connects more than 300,000 YouTube & Twitch channels to games publishers.
SPARKies director Abby Frear said: “It’s been an exceptional year for the SPARKies. We received a record number of applications, the quality of which was incredibly high.
“The judges were truly impressed and it wasn’t always easy for them to pick the winners.
“The ceremony at Komedia was sold out and brought together many key players, shakers and movers in the region’s tech community.”
Other SPARKies winners included Nick Sturge, director of Bristol’s Engine Shed innovation hub, who was presented with the Lifetime Achievement award for his dedication in promoting the South West tech cluster.
Bristol-based Wriggle won two awards – Best App and Best Digital Marketing Campaign.
Full list of SPARKies 2017 winners:
Best App: Wriggle
Best Digital Design: Complete Control (Bits and Bricks)
Data, Data, Data: Bath:Hacked
Best Mentor/ Advisor: Ash Phillips
Most Exemplary use of Virtual or Mixed Reality: Ultrahaptics
FutureSPARK: Neha Chaudhry
The Hard Award: Motion Impossible
Founder/Entrepreneur of the Year: Diane Douglas (Vigiles Group)
Best Digital Marketing Campaign: Wriggle
The ‘Good’ Award: Designability
Lifetime Achievement: Nick Sturge
Best Start-up: Keymailer
The ‘Totally Killing It’ Award: VR World Congress
Best Place to Work in Tech: Edo (formerly Sift Digital)
The People’s Choice: Mayden
