Sydney-based tech firm Lumi.Media has won the InnovationAus 2023 Award for Excellence in Creative Tech and Software for its all-in-one project management platform for television productions.
The InnovationAus 2023 Awards for Excellence were presented on Wednesday night at a black-tie gala dinner at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney.
The Creative Tech and Software Award was presented on the night by the federal shadow minister for government services and the digital economy, shadow minister for science and the arts, and manager of Opposition business in the House, Paul Fletcher.
The category celebrated the collision between Australia’s rapidly growing tech sector and its strengths in the arts, design, media and entertainment sectors. The finalists are trailblazers paving the way forward in the intersection of these areas, with tech used to enhance and facilitate creative endeavours.
After winning her award, Lumi Media chief executive Karen Dewey said it was a particular honour to win a creative award.
“I think people have often thought creatives can’t be harnessed by technology and we set about to prove that was wrong. You can harness creatives with technology, you can empower them to do more to make more with less,” Ms Dewey said.
Lumi.Media took out the award for its software-as-a-service offering for television productions which is already in use around the world for some of the largest reality shows on the planet.
The platform is an end-to-end cast management and production management software specifically designed for unscripted television shows and radio productions. It allows all cast and team members to be connected into the whole story across all stages of the production timeline, meaning any decision made can be instantaneously communicated to everyone.
Lumi.Media’s clients include ITV, WTFN, Endemol Shine, Fremantle, Eureka, nova Radio and the AFL House. It also recently won all of ITV UK’s unscripted program slate of more than 20 shows, and is planning to expand into radio sports broadcasting in the United States and United Kingdom.
The concept for the company was developed by founder Karen Dewey when she was working as an executive producer on a major reality TV show. During this time, she witnessed first-hand how the program was still developed and organised using archaic techniques centred on post-it notes placed on a whiteboard.
With an aim to entirely digitise this process, Dewey brought in her brother Neil, a leading software architect, to develop Lumi.Media together.
“We are about reducing duplication, reducing paper waste, reducing hours of wasted time, and really allowing teams to collaborate in real time in one place, big creative teams. That was our whole mission,” Ms Dewey said.
The Sydney-based company now has 50 employees across New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland and the United Kingdom.
The company received early-stage funding from Screen Australia, AusIndustry and a group of angel investors.
Its platform is designed to be easily customisable, to seamlessly integrate content, teams and workflow and to provide real-time oversight and visibility of the entire project from a macro and micro view.
The company says its platform can lead to the elimination of 15 other separate systems and apps that are used across the production process.
The other finalists in the Creative Tech and Software category were Voltin and Femtek Creative.
The InnovationAus 2023 Awards for Excellence are proudly supported by Investment NSW, AusIndustry, Australian Computer Society, Technology Council of Australia, Agile Digital, CSIRO, TechnologyOne, IP Australia, METS Ignited and Q-CTRL.
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