Six North Dublin town groups shortlisted in the .IE Digital Town Awards 2023

IE, the national registry for .ie domain names, has announced that six entries from North Dublin town groups have been shortlisted for the .IE Digital Town Awards 2023.

The awards, now in their 3rd year and have welcomed Vodafone as a partner for 2023, recognise and reward projects created by town groups and local communities that have a digital element, supporting Ireland’s digital development.

The shortlisted entries include:

Drumcondra’s ‘My NCBI Smart Hub’ shortlisted in Community Digital category, proudly sponsored by Western Development Commission.

The My NCBI Smart Hub is a voice assisted  AI-based application that runs on Amazon Alexa and Google Home.  It provides users with the ability to access essential services provided by NCBI (National Council for the Blind Ireland).  It was designed to be accessible in terms of cost (the device costs less than €30) and also to be white-labelled so it can be implemented in other charities quickly and cheaply.

‘Empowering the sight loss community through sport’, is shortlisted in the Newcomer category. This is a mobile friendly fully featured e-commerce website which encourages visually impaired individuals to participate in sport with a key objective being to provide access to sports, coaches, trainers, and training plans. It also streamlines donations, facilitates e-commerce and payment processing.

Skerries Community Car initiative has been shortlisted in the Community Digital category which is proudly sponsored by Western Development Commission. The car service offers lifts to senior citizens and those with limited mobility helping them to attend medical appointments, shopping, religious services, the post office, and social gatherings. The service functions on a private network with a database of qualified drivers.  Bookings for the service are facilitated by Local Link and it uses keyless technology.

Fingal’s Weather Station for Schools has been shortlisted in the Digital Education category. This project distributed weather stations and rainfall gauges to 100 primary schools in Fingal which supports them in collecting real-time weather data. This data is then uploaded to Met Éireann’s weather observation website. One of the benefits is that more accurate and local data is gathered relating to elements including wind speeds and flooding. The Environmental Protection Agency and NASA host a live feed from Fingal schools on their websites.

Ballymun’s INSPIRE mentoring programme, has been shortlisted in the Digital Education category. The INSPIRE mentoring programme is a catalyst for positive change in young , marginalised people who lack social capital, professional connections and role models.  Using a digital platform, the young person receives weekly one-to-one mentoring to help them reach their full potential, build self-confidence and achieve their career ambitions.  The scalable platform features include video calls, a variety of tools to support the mentors, post meeting notes and auto alerts.

Glasnevin’s Parking Protect AI powered app, has been shortlisted in Digital Changemaker category which is proudly sponsored by Connected Hubs for promoting accessibility for all by providing an AI-powered App that makes it easy for people to report accessible parking misuse. The key objective of the project is to reduce accessible parking misuse, increase the number of accessible parking spaces available, and foster a more inclusive community for people with disabilities.

In addition, national suicide charity Turn2Me, has also been shortlisted in the Community category. The fully online, digital platform offers free counselling and peer support in a safe, anonymous confidential space, eliminating barriers to accessing support including cost, waiting lists and travel time.

Congratulating the finalists, National Director, .IE Digital Town Programme Oonagh McCutcheon said “At .IE, our purpose is to enable and empower people, communities and businesses across Ireland to thrive online and we are advocates for all things digital at all levels. The .IE Digital Town Awards are a celebration of the incredible work being undertaken at a local level to promote innovation and breathe new life into local communities. The awards also afford the opportunity to recognise and show appreciation to the volunteers across the country who devote their spare time working tirelessly to enhance their local area, towns and villages and we look forward to celebrating all of our finalists at our Gala Awards ceremony in May’.

Chair of the .IE Digital Town Awards 2023 judging committee Joan Mulvihill added “The calibre of entries we received for this years’ awards has been astounding – I speak on behalf of my fellow judges when I say that we were blown away by the wealth of stories and commend each and every entrant who took the time to complete an application.  The digital future looks incredibly bright when we look at adoption of digital technology to solve everyday problems in towns and communities across the country’.

The awards offer a prize fund of €100,000 which is split across the 10 categories.

Winners will be announced at a Gala Awards event on Wednesday 24th May.

Follow .IE on Twitter and at #DigitalTownAwards