The prestigious INCA Awards are highly sought after. With just eight awards to be won, it doesn't get any easier to win one. The Awards are designed to recognise outstanding work in a sector which has shown itself to be committed to rapid innovation, change, and a passion for excellence. For 2023 our categories are as follows:
- Customer Acquisition Award: If 2023 is about anything it is about the transition from building new networks to growing the rate of customer take-up using those new networks. This is all about understanding customer needs, creating compelling service offers, effective communication and of course outstanding customer service. Who are the innovators and leaders in this space, driving customer take-up rates with brilliantly designed and executed strategies. We want to know.
- Outstanding Delivery of New Infrastructure. This award aims to recognise remarkable achievement by an organisation in tackling the challenges and making the most of the opportunities that the last 12 months has offered. The pace and scale of deployment across the AltNet sector has continued to be remarkable, even in the face of substantial headwinds, and this award seeks to identify the best of the best. Which organisation has really stood out for you over the last year?
- Technical Innovation: Designed in part to enable hardware and software providers in membership of INCA to engage with the awards programme, often in partnership with our operator members and others, this award focusses on the critical role of innovation in our industry. What are the innovations that have proved crucial in the last year? Who has been delivering the ground-breaking work?
- Best Public Sector Project: Local authorities and other public bodies often play a crucial role in the delivery of world class connectivity for their communities. Working in collaboration with communities and private sector partners, balancing needs and priorities in order to deliver successful outcomes requires skill and judgement. This award recognises that expertise and celebrates outstanding achievement in a public sector project.
- Best Community Project: Designed to highlight often smaller community-focussed connectivity projects that might otherwise go under the radar and not get the recognition they deserve for their often innovative approaches in commonly challenging circumstances. Where are communities doing it for themselves? What are the projects that deserve to be in the spotlight?
- The Net Zero Award: The challenge of the climate emergency looms large, and impacts every one of us. We firmly believe that through collaborative action we can accelerate our progress on GHG emissions reduction, and this award aims to identify and recognise those organisations in our sector that are leading the way, developing good practice, creating a roadmap that we can follow.
- Outstanding Contribution (individual and/or organisation): The Outstanding Contribution Award is an opportunity to recognise the particular achievements of an individual or an organisation in our industry. Who has gone above and beyond in order to make truly distinctive things happen. In the case of individuals, their achievement may be over a longer timeframe – perhaps even their whole career, whilst in the case of organisational nominees, the judges will be looking at achievements in the last year or so. Subject to the submissions we receive, the judges may choose to make two awards in this category, i.e. one for an individual, and one for an organisation.
- Rising Star (individual only): Recruiting and nurturing talent is essential in our sector. For any organisation, success begins with your people – how you develop them, how you support them, and how you enable them to reach their potential. This award seeks to recognise the rising stars of our industry. The people who are often new to the sector who making a significant contribution despite their limited experience. We're looking not only for energy, enthusiasm and imagination, but also a willingness to step up to new challenges and show resilience when the going gets tough. Who in your organisation stands out as a future leader – always ready to support their colleagues and learn from their mistakes. Our judges want to know about them and how they are adding value. Tell us why your chosen nominee is destined for great things, and why they should win this award this year. NB: Nominees must be 30 years of age or less on November 16th 2023. We can not accept self-nominations for this award.
Entries are now closed for this year. We've received a record number of nominations this, so huge thanks is due to everyone who has taken the time to prepare and submit a nomination.
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What Happens Next?
Our panel of independent judges are eagerly at work scrutinising your submissions, with the hard task of whittling them down to a shortlist that we'll announce just as soon as possible.
Then it's simply a case of waiting until the special Awards Dinner held as part of our 2023 Conference in November, to find out who is going home with one of the coveted INCA Golds.
Information about last year's shortlisted finalists is here, and the winners are listed here.