Thirty-six companies and five events are in line for this year’s Wellington Gold Awards, taking finalist placings across seven industry categories: creative gold, cyber gold, discovering gold, emerging gold, global gold, supporting gold and vibrant gold; and three best practice categories: workplace safety, green gold and team gold.

Each year over 300 businesses are nominated across the 10 categories. These are distilled into almost 100 entries from which the 10 winners and a supreme winner are chosen. This year’s awards ceremony takes places on 19 June.

Entries open each February, kicking off a four-month programme from gathering entries over the two rounds of judging and the finalists announcement, until the awards night.

The winners are decided by forty judges, made up of business and community leaders.

This year’s finalists are:

Creative Gold (film, media and creative content)

ACG Yoobee School of Design 
DNA (design)
PikPok (games)
pringload (online) 

Cyber Gold

Alphero (digital and mobile)
Malaghan Institute of Medical Research
Provoke Solutions (software)
Snapper Solutions (payment technology)

Discovering Gold (recent research and development projects) 

Conductor by Eight Wire (plug and play data management)
Home Hunter by Kiwibank, Sush Mobile and Springload (apps)
Honevo by HoneyLab (honey for health)
Quakeflex by Distaster Prepare (seismic restraints)

Emerging Gold (enterprises with fewer than 10 staff)

Ecopoint (LED lighting)
Gofi8ure (Xero accounting partner)
Parrotdog (brewers)
Social Code (online patient engagement platform for managing chronic disease)
Stqry (apps)
Wishbone Design Studio (children’s products)

Global Gold (exporters)

Aspeq (training and assessment programmes)
Matahiwi Vineyard Matakina Technology (breast cancer screening technology)
Starnow (talent community)
The Protein Bakery (biscuits for health)

Supporting Gold (professional services and infrastructure providers)

Label and itho
Massey College of Creative Arts
Tranzit Group
Whitireia Faculty of Health

Vibrant Gold (events, hospitality)

Round the Bays
Beervana
Capital E-Arts Festival
Newtown Festival
Wings Over Wairarapa

Best Practice Awards 

Workplace Safety

Adrenalin Forest (high-wire adventure parks)
Aurecon (global engineering)
Contact Energy
Greater Wellington Regional Council

Green Gold (sustainable practices and products)

Earthlink (recycling)
Flight Plastics
Meridian Energy
Silica Glass Crushers

Team Gold (HR and wellness programmes)

CQ Hotels Wellington
Springload
The Improvisors (HR roadshows)
Transpower
Wellington City Council