IP Australia's 'Alex' tops digital awards

The winners of the National Archives of Australia’s Digital Excellence Awards have been announced, with a number of innovative IT solutions taking out the top prizes.

IP Australia’s ‘Alex’, the world’s first virtual assistant for intellectual property enquiries, was winner in the large agency category.

Alex is designed to manage out-of-hours phone calls and now handles 82% of the agency’s enquiries.

The Central Land Council took out the medium agency category award for its efforts to overcome cultural, technical and geographical challenges to digitise over 130,000 documents.

The Australian Commission for Safety and Quality in Health Care was the winner in the small agency category, being cited for its consistent achievements in ranking in the top five compliant government agencies and meeting the targets set in the Digital Continuity 2020 Policy.

Another winner was Dinh Diep, records and information administrator at the Australian Building and Construction Commission, who was presented with the Individual Information Professional award for ‘showing dedication to advancing information management and empowering others in the organisation to do the same’.

Commendations were awarded to the Parliamentary Budget Office, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, and the Australian Commission for Safety and Quality in Health Care.

“Our annual awards recognise Commonwealth agencies that are leading the way in information management in the digital age,” said National Archives Director-General David Fricker.

“The list of 2018 winners demonstrates that digital innovation is changing the way government departments do business to better serve Australian citizens.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/quaddplusq

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