Tech Visionary Winner 2021 - Bree Pagonis

Announcing the Luminary Tech Visionary Award Winner for 2021

Bree-Anne Pagonis is the winner of this year’s Luminary Tech Visionary award, which recognises young people demonstrating creative thinking and making a significant contribution and social impact through the use of digital.

Cristina Ghioghiu
Cristina Ghioghiu

19 April 2021

2 minute read

The Luminary Tech Visionary award is a category of the 2021 7NEWS Young Achiever Awards. The award was presented by Luminary CEO Marty Drill at a Gala dinner at the Sofitel Hotel in Melbourne on Friday 16 April. It attracted some of Victoria’s brightest young minds in digital with a very high calibre of entrants competing for the title. The winner was announced during a gala dinner presentation hosted by MC Melina Sarris from 7NEWS.

Bree won over the judges with her innovative social enterprise, WIRL, which uses technology to help women reduce the metal load they carry about food. WIRL employs the principles of intuitive eating combined with Bree’s training and experience as a dietitian to help women develop a more joyful, relaxed and simple way of enjoying and preparing food. 

The UN identifies unpaid care and domestic work as a factor in economic empowerment, with mental load directly impacting women’s capacity to 'earn and learn'. This means that Bree’s work will not only help women eat better, it also aims to help them live better. 

Bree’s energy, passion and commitment to her ambitious vision shone brightly on the night. As Marty reflected in his announcement speech, “the level of enthusiasm and possibility that young people have gets them through a whole range of circumstances”.

The other two finalists in the Luminary Tech Visionary Award 2021 also demonstrated an outstanding level of both brilliance and dedication in employing technology to bring about new possibilities for a better future. These were:

Maurice Schill, creator of Juju, an app that provides a digital platform for colleagues to express their appreciation for each other through gratitude and recognition rather than material rewards.

Joe Sinclair, founder of Sprout, an app that allows people to buy, sell and swap excess backyard produce with people in their community. 


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