The Think Global Awards - a Look Back at Past Winners
At the Think Global Forum, we are looking forward to April, when the next Think Global Awards ceremony will take place. We are also taking a look back at some of the previous winners of the awards.
We have been fortunate to see an increased interest in the awards over the past six years and have enjoyed witnessing the continued growth and success of many of our award winners. Below, we spotlight a selection of winners to understand what makes them unique.
In 2021, OnBuy received the Retail and E-commerce Award. The company launched in November 2016 and is now the world's fastest-growing marketplace. OnBuy identified what other marketplaces were offering and thought they could improve on this – so they did. They created what is believed to be a fairer, more transparent marketplace that puts its buyers and sellers first – in doing so, they can offer the same advantages as the leading marketplaces. Still, in a new way that benefits everyone. Since 2016, OnBuy has welcomed sellers of all sizes, from household names to smaller independent retailers.
The Start-Up Award went to FreshLand. The company aims to “disrupt the industry” by shortening the path from farm to table. To guarantee that ingredients arrive at your door as fresh as possible, they match harvest with demand, ensuring that fruit and vegetables are eaten in season—the goal of FreshLand is to reduce the levels of carbon dioxide produced by the food industry. A startling statistic is that the food industry currently accounts for 26% of all CO2 emissions, with one-third of all food being wasted. Since their win only two short years ago, we are delighted to see that FreshLand has expanded its operations and is now working in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and The Netherlands.
Animaccord received the Brand of the Year Award in 2021. The company was established in 2008 and is an international award-winning entertainment company focusing on developing, producing, and distributing animated brands globally, with a team of more than 200 professionals. Animaccord now has offices in the USA, Russia, China, Poland, and Cyprus. Thanks to its strong media presence and record-breaking YouTube performance (together with a focused SoMe effort), they have brought its flagship series, “Masha and the Bear,” to over 150 countries around the globe.
Alocai picked up the Technology Award in 2021. The company is an end-to-end game localization platform that integrates human creativity alongside artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver superior gaming experiences.
Clinical Pharmacist Solutions were the 2021 Life Sciences Award winner. They are an award-winning training, recruitment, and clinical services provider specializing in utilizing clinical pharmacist skills in primary care. The company possesses the necessary experience, expertise, and tools to benchmark pharmacists, support them with their training needs and upskill them as required. Based in the United Kingdom, Clinical Pharmacist Solutions currently support multiple GP surgeries, PCNs, and GP federations. Their core objective is to support the National Health Service (NHS) workforce by providing safe and efficient clinical pharmacist-led services in primary care.
2021 saw the introduction of a new award category - the Sustainability Award. The inaugural winners in this category were Polestar. It is a Swedish automotive brand established in 1996 by Volvo/Polestar Racing. It is headquartered in Torslanda, outside of Gothenburg. A recent review of Polestar’s latest fully electric vehicle, the Polestar 2, frames the vehicle as one of the most complete electric cars. Superb build quality, and decent to drive (Top Gear, 2023).
The 2021 Language Person of the Year Award was presented to Ulrich Henes. Mr. Henes is the founder and president of The Localization Institute, a Wisconsin-based consulting and event-organizing company. In his early years, Ulrich was fascinated by language, cultural differences, and global business. He spent the first decade of his career organizing international campaigns against the arms race and apartheid and promoting global social justice. For the last 25 years, Ulrich has channeled his passion for all things global into promoting the awareness of and respect for the differences among people, countries, and languages within the international business community.
The fifth Think Global Awards took place in a virtual ceremony on April 20, 2022. The awards program recognized the global success of individuals and organizations supported by Think Global Forum, an international hub to generate creative, insightful, and inspiring strategic thinking across global topics.
The 2022 awards saw the revision of award categories and the introduction of several new categories. One such new category was Best CSR/Sustainability Transformation. The inaugural winner in this category was Tru Earth Environmental Products. Tru Earth is a Vancouver-based company providing consumers with an eco-friendly zero waste laundry detergent upgrade. As of October 30th, 2019, all Tru Earth Eco-Strips laundry detergent strips are shipping in a zero-waste compostable cardboard sleeve. To further reduce waste, the package also doubles as a mailing envelope. Eliminating the mailing envelope further reduces shipping waste.
Co-founder and CMO of Tru Earth stated, “We created a zero waste package that would protect our laundry strips while also cutting back on other resources. After a lot of experimenting, we came up with an amazing new zero-waste package that eliminates shipping envelopes. It was a huge win.”
Another of the new categories of 2022 was the Best Digital Transformation/Pivot Campaign. The award winner in this category was Vodafone. Vodafone is a leading telecommunications company in both Europe and Africa. They connect for a better future, using technology to improve people’s lives and enable an inclusive, sustainable digital society – this is their purpose. They are guided by their social contract and bring to life their sense through everything they do. Vodafone is committed to society, customers, and governments to connect rural communities, enable access to education, healthcare, and financial services, and help businesses. These actions also contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Through our business, we aim to build a digital society that enhances socioeconomic progress, is inclusive for all, and does not come at a cost to the planet.
The 2022 Education and eLearning award was presented to Ingenium. At Ingenium, their mission is to enable the change in performance that their clients desire. This is supported by dedicated and experienced teams using proven and innovative programs and tools. Ingenium delivers transformational outcomes that create sustainable change for organizations while respecting the history and culture of the communities in which they work. Their vision is to be the global leader in delivering human and organizational performance solutions. Headquartered in Limerick, Ireland, Ingenium also has offices in Australia and the Americas.
The Process Automation award, an additional new category for 2022, was awarded to Chargebee. Chargebee is a recurring billing and subscription management tool that helps SaaS and SaaS-like businesses streamline Revenue Operations. The company integrates with the leading payment gateways, such as Stripe, Braintree, PayPal, etc., around the world to let companies automate recurring payment collection along with invoicing, taxes, accounting, email notifications, SaaS Metrics, and customer management. Chargebee handles all crucial workflows from lead to ledger with power-packed integrations that include Salesforce, Xero, Quickbooks, Avalara, and Slack, among others.
The Start-Up award in 2022 was awarded to the Irish company Spark Digital. Spark Digital is a digital marketing consultancy and training business founded in 2014 by Felicity McCarthy. Felicity has worked on the cutting edge of the technology sector for 20 years, leading European digital marketing teams in companies such as Facebook, eBay & Dell.
Lucio Bagnulo was awarded the 2022 Language Industry Person of the Year Award. Lucio is the Head of Translation and Language Strategy at Amnesty International. His language intersection is language and human rights. He states, "I am fortunate enough to wake up every single day knowing that, thanks to my work and the work of my team, Amnesty International's all-important messages will get far.” The Amnesty translation function is a powerful organizational catalyst for inclusive and effective communication and a key contributor to achieving a more significant human rights impact worldwide. Lucio believes that, in the end, the strategic role of translation contributes to challenging human rights abuses, bringing hope to their victims, and empowering human rights holders in their language in their own words.
Finally, our winners’ spotlight ends with the winners of the Creative Ingenuity Award for 2022. The winners in this category were Wowzitude.
The Wowzitude story started with a problem. In 2020, founder Susan Black’s mother, like many older adults, endured a lockdown at her assisted living residence. Like many others, she struggled with the anxiety of the pandemic’s physical separation. Isolated from family and friends, Susan’s mother also dealt with the loss of in-person activities that connected her to the community. Susan became increasingly concerned with her mother’s social and emotional needs, and together, they were inspired to create Wowzitude, having shared a lifelong love of travel. Wowzitude is a community-based live, virtual travel club, Zooming in guided tours designed to encourage conversations, meet locals around the world and explore or revisit destinations. The response was immediate and positive and continues to be. Sadly, Susan’s mother passed away in July 2022, but she continues to be her inspiration and role model.