Luminary Tech Visionary Award recognises rising stars in digital

Victoria’s brightest young minds in digital have been celebrated with the announcement of the Luminary Tech Visionary Award, a category of the 2020 7NEWS Young Achiever Awards. 

The awards were presented in an online ceremony on 18 September 2020, hosted by 7NEWS Presenter Mike Amor. The event was broadcast via the Young Achiever Awards' website and streamed live on Facebook, attracting more than 5500 viewers.

The Luminary Tech Visionary Award recognises young people demonstrating creative thinking and making a significant contribution and social impact through the use of digital. 

The winner of the Award was 25-year-old Alexandra Irwin Liu, from Macleod. Alexandra is the founder of Accessibly.com.au, an online social network for people with a disability, helping them find and share accessible bars, restaurants and cafes tailored to their individual needs. Users of the platform can discover, filter, rate and review local places and take part in community life through social engagement and connection. 

“The Luminary Tech Visionary Award was an exceptionally hard-fought category of the Victorian Young Achiever Awards, with an extremely strong field of finalists,” said Luminary CEO Marty Drill. “We chose to sponsor this award to foster, celebrate and encourage the enthusiasm and idealism of young people who are seeking to solve big problems and influence the human experience.”

The other three finalists in the Luminary Tech Visionary Award were:

• Catherine Allington, pioneer of the Fertility Preservation Decision Aid, a website to help parents of children who have been diagnosed with cancer make decisions about treatments that could impact their child's fertility in later life.
• Morgan Coleman, founder of Vets On Call, an app that brings vet services to people's homes. 
• Zoe Condliffe, creator of She’s A Crowd, a platform designed to make cities safer for women. 

The Young Achiever Awards began in 2012 with the purpose to acknowledge, encourage and most importantly promote the positive achievements of all young people up to and including 29 years of age. The awards showcase the achievements of young Victorians, and pay tribute to their vision, innovation and commitment to contributing to their community.