Have your say! Which of the IrishCentral Creativity and Arts Awards nominees in Media & Innovation should be the winner?
Learn all about their extraordinary work below, and then head over to our voting portal to cast your vote.
Tickets for this event are now SOLD OUT but you can join us on Facebook Feb 9 to watch it live with TG4.
Sponsors include TG4, Feile 30, Irish American Writers & Artists, Slane Irish Whiskey, American Irish Historical Society, and Irish Network USA.
Nigel Eccles, Founder FanDuel and Entrepreneur
Tyrone man Nigel Eccles founded web-based fantasy sports game FanDuel in 2009 and grew it to 6 million users before stepping down to focus on new start-up opportunities in 2018. Eccles was raised on a dairy farm in Co. Tyrone, and the hard work of his upbringing translated well to the digital space.
FanDuel was born from an earlier project Eccles, a former McKinsey consultant, and his wife, Lesley, launched for the 2008 US presidential election called Hubdub. The news prediction model aimed to call the outcome of the election in every US state. Successful though it was, they saw an even greater opportunity in applying the same model to the world of sports, and so FanDuel came to be.
It was a great success, taking in $3 billion in player entry fees alone in 2015, and eventually merging with its main competitor DraftKings in 2016. Eccles remained as CEO until November 20, 2017, and it will be exciting to see what he does next.
Samantha Barry, Editor-in-Chief, Glamour
Samantha Barry, originally from Co. Cork, was just named as the new Editor-in-Chief of Glamour magazine, the eighth person to hold the title since the magazine was founded in 1939. She will make the move to Glamour from CNN Worldwide, where she has worked as the Executive Producer for Social and Emerging Media since 2014. Under Barry’s direction, CNN’s 2016 election coverage won the first ever Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in social media and a Webby Award.
Barry, 36, joined CNN from BBC World News in London, where she served as a social media producer and journalist. She previously worked as reporter and producer for RTE and Newstalk in Ireland. She's spent time in Papua New Guinea with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and has worked as a social media and technology trainer for the U.S. State Department, the United States Institute of Peace and Internews.
Barry graduated from Dublin City University with a Masters in Journalism. She is a 2016 fellow of Columbia University School's prestigious Sulzberger executive program and is a guest lecturer at Yale.
Paul Quigley, Founder & CEO of NewsWhip
Paul, a native of Dublin, founded NewsWhip in 2011 and has successfully made it world's largest engagement database, allowing newsrooms to identify important and emerging stories.
Quigley’s passion for news started early on – in his school days, he created a local publication for his town, the Castleroy Times, and, later, a newsletter for students in Limerick called Nutshell. He studied law and international law at Trinity College Dublin and New York University. During his career in litigation and arbitration he has provided advice at some of New York’s major commercial law firms.
He left New York to start NewsWhip in 2010 with Andrew Mullaney, and has built the platform into an indispensable tool for newsrooms around the world.
Dermot McCormack, Founder SNKR Inc
Dublin-born Dermot is the former global president of AOL Studios and recently founded SNKR Inc, a video and media company devoted to producing premium content centered on the sneaker culture.
Born and raised in Dublin, McCormack was previously the CEO of 2D Studios & Productions. Earlier, he was the head of connected content at Viacom, managing all digital content for MTV, VH1, CMT, and Logo. In his time working for AOL and Viacom, he pushed the boundaries of the ways in which digital content could expand audience engagement.
McCormack comes from a long line of inner-city Dubliners, including his grandfather, who was a dockworker. Dermot earned a Bachelor’s of Science in electronic engineering from Dublin Institute of Technology and was dubbed by Bono as “Digital Dermot from Dublin.”
Claire McHugh, Axonista
Claire, originally from Dublin, is CEO and Co-Founder of Axonista, a company that is leading the way in making television and video more interactive and lists media giants such as MTV, ESPN, and QVC among its clients.
From a sports broadcast background, Claire co-founded Axonista in 2010 with Daragh Ward and, over the last seven years, their award winning team has been working towards a vision where all video is intuitively interactive.
Claire is a digital and future TV enthusiast and is a frequent speaker at global industry events about the future of television, including the TV of Tomorrow show in San Francisco and New York, the Future of Broadcasting in London, and Mediacon Dublin.
She is a mentor for Startup Next Ireland, a Techstars program and the #1 startup pre-acceleration program in the world.
Tickets for this event are now SOLD OUT but you can join us on Facebook Feb 9 to watch it live with TG4.
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