CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwire) -- 06/05/12 -- After a very successful and sold-out gala evening at Hotel Arts in Calgary on Monday June 4th, 2012 Digital Alberta is pleased to announce the winners for the annual Digital Alberta Awards recognizing the outstanding digital talent in the province of Alberta. The judges chose 16 winners from a pool of over 46 deserving finalists.
Some of the highlights for the evening included opening remarks from Minister of Culture, the Honorable Heather Klimchuk, a virtual spaceship, mad scientist lab and interactive touch screen technology.
In addition to the judged categories, this year Digital Alberta announced a new People's Choice award for the Most Inspirational Digital Leader. This award was voted on by the public in the digital industry. The winner of this award is Kurtis Lesick, Director at Creative Environment for Emerging Electronic Culture and Faculty at the Alberta College of Art + Design. The other inspirational leaders nominated alongside Kurtis were: Kevin Swan from iNovia Captial, Owen Brierley, Executive Director of Guru Digital Arts College, Peter Bishop the Digital Creative Director from ZGM Collaborative Marketing, Skye Boyes from GenX Studios, and Trevor Doerksen, CEO and Founder of Mobovivo.
"We are just so excited about the impact of this year's event", commented Michelle Sklar, President of Digital Alberta. "It has really built on the success of last year and has grown in both scope and submissions. Congratulations to all of our nominees, finalists, winners and people's choice award winner."
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Digital Alberta 2012 Awards Finalists
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Community and Education
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Best in Student Interactive Digital First Generation Albertans,
Media and Creative Design Giannitsos & Poon
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Best in E-learning Time to Drill, Sajak & Farki
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Best Digital Media Leader - Community Owen Brierley, Guru Digital Arts
Leader, Educator, Program Leader, or College
Department Head
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Philanthropy
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Best Digital Philanthropy Innovation How a Regional Bank will Change the
World, Benevity
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Film, Television and Gaming
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Best in Cross-platform Content HDNet Fights Second Screen App,
Mobovivo
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Best Use of Film, Animation or Bear 71, NFB
Special FX
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Best in Gaming Catch the Princess, Robots & Pencils
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Software, Mobile and Startups
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Combined Hardware & Software Water Centre Touchscreen Kiosk, Sajak
Experience & Farki
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Mobile Entertainment Country 105 30th Anniversary iPhone
App
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Mobile Applications Poynt, Poynt Corporation
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Best In E-Commerce Solutions eThor, Gary Ziegler
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Best Digital Startup UrtheCast
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Design and Creative
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Best Digital Design Prius Canada Website, Sajak & Farki
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Marketing and Social Media
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Best In Social Media W. Brett Wilson, ZGM
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B2C Innovation Calgary.ca Website Redesign, City of
Calgary
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Best Digital Advertising/Marketing Plenty of Syph, Calder Bateman
Campaign
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To learn more about Digital Alberta visit www.digitalalberta.com.
About Digital Alberta:
Digital Alberta is an industry-led organization devoted to promoting and connecting the thriving digital media community across Alberta, Canada. Through professional development workshops, advocacy work, education, event, and business development activity, Digital Alberta is building the digital media industry provincially and promoting it abroad.
The digital media industry is defined as the creative convergence of digital arts, science, technology and business for human expression, communication, social interaction, and education. The industry spans several disciplines, including but not limited to: audio, video, game design, animation, modeling, simulation, and interactive design.
In Alberta, digital media is considered a key contributor to the provincial ICT industry which is made up of 6,300 companies, 57,000 employees, and generating over $450 million in annual revenues. Areas of key growth in Alberta's digital media industry include: Social media content and applications, Interactive entertainment, Content and applications for mobile devices, E-Learning and games for training and education, Interactive marketing, and finally Standards-based web design and development.
Contacts:
The Agency
Arleigh Galant Vasconcellos
+1 403.561.4810
arleigh (at) theagencyinc (dot) ca
Digital Alberta
Jo-Anne Douthwaite
403-284-6418
joanne (at) digitalalberta (dot) com
www.digitalalberta.com
