Australian Capital Territory Pearcey

2009 ACT Pearcey Award

This event was held on Wednesday 16th September 2009 in Canberra at the Canberra Business Events Centre, Regatta Point. The award was presented by Mr Jon Stanhope MLA, Chief Minister for the ACT during the Business in Focus Month and jointly sponsored with the Australian Computer Society, ACT Branch.

The 2009 winner of the ACT Pearcey Award was Mr Michael McGoogan who is founder and CEO of AussieHQ, a webservices provider company based in Canberra. Michael started AussieHQ when he was 16 having gotten 'bored' at High School and now employs more than 35 people at his company just 10 years later. Michael joked to the audience that he was delighted to have won "the geeky version of the Oscars!". Michael has attracted strong equity investment from the local investor community and has acquired several companies in related areas to build AussieHQ to be the success it is today.

We were also very fortunate to have Ms Judi Dawton as our guest speaker at this event. Judi is a senior officer in the Digital Economy Division of the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and updated the audience on the role of the digital economy in Australia's economic future. She noted a forum, which is to be held later this year, where industry and the community can participate in discussion to identify and map the applications and business models that will exploit the digital economy for the nation's benefit.

Sponsors

• ACT Government
• ACT branch of the Australian Computer Society