ICT initiative of the year award winner announced
The winner of the ICT initiative of the year award, sponsored by Jisc, was announced last night in London at the Times Higher Leadership and Management Awards 2013.
The awards, hosted by comedian Dara O Briain, covered everything from international strategy to student services, from fundraising to HR and estates to admissions. The event showcased the extraordinary innovation, teamwork and commercial acumen of UK higher education institutions.
Robert Haymon-Collins, Jisc’s executive director of customer experience, said:
“At Jisc we believe in making the UK the most digitally advanced education and research nation in the world and this year’s winner is most certainly contributing to making this happen.
This year’s award goes to the National Union of Students (NUS), for their creation of UnionCloud, which is their own cloud computing platform, to create the NUS Digital project. NUS Digital enables students’ unions across the UK to interact more effectively with their members at a local level. Among other services, it offers membership communication management, targeted marketing, election functions and resources for student clubs and societies.”
NUS president Liam Burns said:
“We are really honoured to have won this award. There has never been a non-institution winner at these awards before and the shortlist had some serious initiatives to compete with.
As with all these things, it's the effort everyone has put into promoting NUS Digital and its potential that has made it an award winning initiative. So a genuine thank you to everyone in the NUS Group. What the platform will mean for our campaigning and ability to talk to students is really exciting and being nationally recognised this early on is exceptional.”
Chris Cobb, chief operating officer and university secretary at the University of London, was one of the category’s judges. He said that NUS Digital was
"...an example of what can be achieved through collaboration.
The core infrastructure and suite of tools in the UnionCloud are innovative, timely and relevant as evidenced by the very strong buy-in from local students’ unions.
What is particularly interesting is how the NUS has harnessed the power of social networking as a core means of communication within its membership.”
See the full list of award winners on the Times Higher Leadership and Management Awards 2013 website.