News | 03 Nov 2008 :
Entrepreneur Pat Phelan, Maxroam was awarded the overall Net Visionary Award at the 2008 Irish Internet Association & Enterprise Ireland Net Visionary Award at the gala black-tie awards ceremony on 30 October in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
Phelan is a well known innovator of services which are delivered globally and which compete with established telecoms models and companies. He is also an advocate of using developing technologies to deliver new opportunities and is responsible for creating Twitterfone (a voicecall-based Twitter application). His current focus, Maxroam, a Cork-based company, offers a mobile phone service which allows frequent travellers to share local numbers with their contacts in over 50 countries.
Speaking about the announcement Maeve Kneafsey, IIA Chair said, "This year's winner of the overall NetVisionary award was a relatively clear choice.
"When we are looking for our NetVisionary we are looking not only for Internet innovators, but perhaps even more importantly those willing to risk their money and sometimes reputation to see their idea become a reality and succeed. Pat Phelan is one of those entrepreneurs who takes risks and has succeeded globally.
Also announced last night were the winners in 17 categories. Each of the 17 categories comprised 4 shortlisted companies from all over Ireland. Niall Devine of MyCharity.ie and Michele Neylon of Blacknight Solutions were the only double winners of the night, Niall taking the Social Contribution Award sponsored by IEDR and Innovation Award sponsored by iQContent while Michele won Best Business Blogger sponsored by Newsweaver and Internet Marketer sponsored by The Irish Times. Winners announced in the three new categories were Niall O'Driscoll, vStream Digital Media for Best Online Business Use of Irish sponsored by Foras na Gaeilge; Lulu O'Sullivan, 4GiftsDirect.com for Online exporter sponsored by Tibus; and Marcus Mac Innes, Pix.ie for Best Use of Social Media sponsored by Hostelworld.