Australian innovator LiveHire was recently named National winner of the Business Services category at the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) iAwards, the nation’s leading awards program for innovation in the digital economy.

Created to discover, recognise, and reward technology innovations, the iAward’s aims to ‘shine a light’ on the biggest innovators of today, tomorrow, and the future. 

Australia’s most successful tech company Atlassian were recipients in 2012 at the iAwards.  

Past winners also include Payroll by Xero, IBM Research and Development, Wotif and WiseTech. The awards are seen by many as an indicator of a winners future global success. The Hon. Phillip Dalidakis MLC, Victorian Minister for Small Business, Innovation and Trade describes the iAward’s role as the ‘the nation’s digital technology capital… a centrepiece of the state’s Digital Innovation Festival”. 

The Hon. Phillip Dalidakis MLC describes AIIA as “Australia’s peak representative body and advocacy group for those in the digital ecosystem”. 

The LiveHire journey to becoming an iAward winner was full of inspiration, collaboration and sweat. 

Stage one: LiveHire’s iAward Application- LiveHire’s role in shaping the future 

Acknowledging our role in shaping the future by empowering the flow of the world’s talent, we used our application as an opportunity to showcase our globally unique LiveHire ecosystem. 

In a world where the average lifespan of a company has shrunk from 75 to just 15 years, as time to hire has increased from 28 to 68 days, our proactive sourcing and recruitment solution was created to solve this market-dominating issue.  

As explained by LiveHire Co-Founder and Growth Director, Dr Mike Haywood; “It’s basically turning the whole of Australia (and now the world) into a more fluid workforce. People are utilised more often, participating in work they love, and companies have far less workforce gaps, leading to greater productivity and agility.” 

With innovation peeking at an all-time high, the high calibre of applicants was unprecedented, with CEO of Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), Rob Fitzpatrick explaining: 

“Innovation is alive and well in Australia, it’s happening in all quarters of our economy, from start-ups, private enterprise, community services, academia, and even in the public sector. This year’s judges have remarked that the quality of entrants this year is far richer than they’ve seen before. Innovation, risk-taking and exploring new horizons are embedded in Australia’s DNA and the work of the finalists is an inspiration to us all.” 

It was clear we were up against the best- game on! 

Stage two: The Victorian iAwards Announcement 

June 2017 saw a very exciting announcement; LiveHire was awarded not one, but two distinguished State iAward’s. 

The first was as Business Service Market Winner and the second was as Infrastructure and Platform Innovation of the year.  

Not only did these awards validate the LiveHire team’s effort in building valuable and innovative technology that focuses on the candidate first, but it meant that we were a finalist for the National award in August.

Safe to say our team was a little excited!

Stage three: LiveHire pitches to the panel @ KPMG Melbourne  

The pressure was on for LiveHire’s Co-Founder and Growth Director Dr Mike Haywood and our Business Analyst Shih Ching Fu when they pitched to the panel. Lucky for them it’s easy to talk about something you’re so passionate about, and that you know back to front! 

Stage four: The National iAwards @ the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre (Wednesday, August 30, 2017) 

The night of nights was finally here! Hosted by the fabulous Cal Wilson, the evening celebrated all facets of Australian innovation and technology. 

#SideNote: We think the food itself should have won an innovation award- just saying!

After a night of music, fantastic food, and enthralling conversation, the moment finally arrived and LiveHire was presented with 2017 National Winner for Business Services! As the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Senator Arthur expressed during the awards ceremony, “We must showcase them [innovators like LiveHire] at every opportunity and recognise the important contribution they make and congratulate all winners in this year’s iAwards who are helping to shape Australia’s future industries”.  

It’s an honour to be recognised for our role in empowering the flow of the world’s talent, and cementing LiveHire’s position as industry innovators. We could not be more excited to see what the future holds for LiveHire. 

So, what’s next for LiveHire? 

As a national winner, LiveHire now qualifies to represent Australia in the International Awards program, APTICA, taking place in Bangladesh in December! 

Congratulations to the wonderful LiveHire team for their continuous commitment to our mission, and their constant desire to evolve and reach ‘hire’.

If you’d like to read more about LiveHire’s innovating technology and empowering platform, check us out here. #WeGotLiveHired✌