THE 5th ANNUAL LOVIE AWARDS
GATHERS BEST OF THE EUROPEAN INTERNET
Lily Cole, Louis Pouzin, The European Space Agency, Tom Fletcher, David Sandberg (Kung Fury), The Guardian, Eurosport, VICE, Laundrapp, and Mario Testino celebrated by Europe’s Top Internet Honour
13 November, 2015, London: The Lovie Awards, the most prestigious, and only truly pan-European honour for online excellence, saw London play host to Europe’s brightest creative talents in tech last night at The 5th Annual Lovie Awards show at The British Film Institute. The show was hosted by comedian Mark Dolan.
Guests included winners from Channel 4, Digitas LBi Milan, Eigen Fabrikaat, Digital Werk and Stink Digital, in addition to Lovie Special Achievement winners like Lovie Emerging Entrepreneur Lily Cole, whose award was presented by Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales, former British Ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fletcher, The European Space Agency, winners of The Lovie Be Greater with Data Award in recognition of the Rosetta mission, and France’s Louis Pouzin, who won a Lifetime Achievement Award for his CYCLADES network, which laid the foundations for the Internet as we know it today.
Highlights from this year’s Lovie Awards include:
Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales presented The Lovie Emerging Entrepreneur Award to Impossible.com’s Lily Cole. The Lovie awards created its Emerging Entrepreneur award to honour an individual or company who has used the internet as a critical path in the growth of a brand new business.
As Wales described, “Lily’s work with impossible.com demonstrates her core belief that the internet is a place where people can connect, have genuine interactions, and help and educate one another. Her site is a constantly growing home for these types of honest and thoughtful exchanges, forging a new type of interpersonal currency. “
The European Space Agency won The Lovie Be Greater with Data Award in recognition of its utterly historic Rosetta Mission: orbiting and landing Philae on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. This was not only an enormous windfall for science and research about the very origins of life and planet Earth, but signals an immense, decades-long effort by brilliant European teams across the region whom at the very core, are empowered by data in its deepest sense. The ESA have now laid a foundation — with the tools, technology, and intergalactic communications innovations — that will power future, and brand-new, data to be collected about our world’s most vast, and most-unknown frontier: outer space. ESA team members Matt Taylor, Andrea Accomazzo, Patrick Martin and Claudia Mignone were on hand to accept the award. Watch the exclusive Lovie interview with Matt Taylor, filmed at ESA Headquarters in Amsterdam, featured in The Lovie Letters showcase presented by Google: http://lovies.eu/1GTIyWQ
France’s Louis Pouzin was honoured with the Lovie Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his enormous technological contribution, the CYCLADES computer network. CYCLADES greatly influenced the future development of TCP/IP protocol, which remains a key tenet of the Internet’s architecture today. CYCLADES is one of the greatest technical influences on the Internet, borne from Pouzin’s core belief that the Internet should not become fossilised, but should continue to evolve and grow.
The UK’s former Ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fletcher was honoured with a Special Achievement Award in recognition of his tremendous success in using the social Internet to create a closer and more open dialogue — and relationship– between citizens and the government, particularly in Lebanon. During his time as Ambassador, Fletcher was astonishingly active, posting almost 10,000 Tweets with a clear, refreshing and unabashed voice, and with a farewell blog post that went viral. Fletcher’s commitment to digital diplomacy and his core belief of the power of the Internet to foster democracy and important civic conversation, colored his entire tenure as Ambassador, paving the way for future diplomats and citizens.
For the second year, the Lovie Awards unveiled behind-the-scenes stories with winners in The Lovie Letters showcase, in partnership with Google. This year’s stories feature exclusive behind-the-scenes video interviews with winners Matt Taylor, Project Scientist at The ESA, agency Tam Tam in Amsterdam for their Doctors Without Borders work, Lily Cole for her impossible.com project, Made by Many for their Hackaball project, and The Roundhouse, who share all that goes into making successful online work, as well as what it means to be named a leader of the European Internet.
Joining winners in celebration were members of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, who serve as the judging body of The Lovie Awards and its’ international sister The Webby Awards, including Jury Chairman Nicolas Roope, Mubi.com founder Efe Cakarel, and Tim Malbon, Founder of Made by Many. All Lovie Awards Winners in attendance delivered an inspiring “Declarations of Lovie,” the unique acceptance speech that must include the word “Love,” in the language of their choice.
Nicolas Roope, IADAS Jury Chairman for The Lovie Awards, said: “We are delighted to see the diversity of Europe so well-represented in this year’s winners, who are collectively some of the brightest minds in the digital and creative community. Bringing them together for a star-studded celebration enables new and exciting connections to ripple through our community.”
The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS) selected the Gold, Silver and Bronze Lovie winners, and the online public voted for their favourites in The People’s Lovie Awards. The esteemed members of IADAS include Stephen Fry, “Father of Wi-Fi” Vic Hayes, Chester Chipperfield (Special Projects, Apple), Dan Howell (danisnotonfire), Eric Wahlforss (Founder, Soundcloud), Lauren Laverne, Robin Chase (Founder, Buzzcar), Jonathan Benassaya (Co-Founder, Deezer and StreamNation), Imogen Heap, and Elke Klinkhammer (CCO, McCann Germany).
Links to Post-Event Footage:
Embeddable video highlights from the evening are available here:
High-res inside photos are available for your post-event coverage at this link:
http://lovieawards.webbyawards.wpengine.com/press/event-photos/
** PLEASE CREDIT THE 5th ANNUAL LOVIE AWARDS WITH ALL VIDEO & PHOTO USE***
For the full gallery of 2015 winners please visit: http://winners.lovieawards.com
*****ENDS*****
For more information about The Lovie Awards
or to speak to a member of the team please contact:
Rassami Hok Ljungberg
rassami@rassami.com
m: +44 (0)7712675898
Notes to Editors:
About The Lovie Awards
The mission of the Lovie Awards is to recognise the unique and resonant nature of the European internet community – from Europe’s top web and creative networks and content publishers to cultural and political organisations and individual creators. Now in its fifth year, The Lovie Awards continues to celebrate the most resonant and pertinent stories in Europe. With nearly 1,500 entries from over 30 countries across the EU, the Awards reflect the tremendous growth of the internet as a tool for business and everyday lives. Work in English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish and Italian is judged by native speakers in five main category types: Websites, Mobile & Apps, Internet Video, Online Advertising, and Social. More information at www.lovieawards.com. Partners and Sponsors of The Lovie Awards include Google, MediaMonks, Ace Hotel, Coolhunting, The Drum, Springwise, Creativepool, Creative Social, Run, SOON_, Ninjamarketing and Prote.in.
About The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences
The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences was founded in 1998 to help drive the creative, technical, and professional progress of the Internet and evolving forms of interactive media. An international organisation, The Academy selects the Nominees and Winners for The Webby Awards, the leading international honour for Websites and individual achievement in technology and creativity, and its European sister, The Lovie Awards. More information at www.iadas.net.
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