The .IE Digital Town Awards were launched earlier this year to honour local town projects and people that have demonstrated how digital projects have contributed to enhancements or digital improvements in areas such as health, tourism, education, public services, employment opportunities, citizen empowerment, and social entrepreneurship.
Dingle Peninsula’s ‘Reimagining Creatively through Digital’ project was announced as overall winner by Minister Damien English, Minister of State for Business, Employment and Retail at the inaugural .IE Digital Town Awards, which took place on Thursday 10 June.
At a virtual awards ceremony, the town was chosen from the five town category winners as overall winner. In addition to winning the Small Town category prize of €9,000, Dingle Peninsula was awarded an additional prize of €10,000 – bringing its total prize winnings to €19,000.
The aim of the awards was to ‘Shine a Light’ on the good work and achievements of towns that demonstrated digital thinking and innovation for the betterment of local people, services, and society.
There was a total prize fund of €100,000 across 14 award categories. Eleven of the awards were for individual town projects, with a further three special awards recognising a Digital Changemaker, a Digital Rising Star, and a Digital Hero.
Dingle Peninsula came out on top for their innovative project ‘Reimagining Creatively Through Digital’. The focus of the Dingle team was on promoting innovation and imagining new ways of doing things through digital.
Among the highlights was a pilot initiative to increase sustainability and productivity by collecting ‘real-time’ data using sensor technology such as current and predicted weather and soil conditions, and grass growth rates. This will result in carbon efficiencies that can extend the grazing season. Localised ‘real-time’ weather data also enabled tourism providers to tailor tourist packages based on changing weather conditions. Well done Dingle!
