Announcing the 2026 techpartner.news Impact Awards winners

The Australian ICT channel including technology partners, vendors and distributors celebrated stand-out projects and people last night at the 2026 techpartner.news Impact Awards.

The finalists’ work ranged from modernisation of systems underpinning hospitals, electricity services, national disability services, worldwide research, banking, and government services used by tens of thousands of parents.

The awards are sponsored by Checkpoint, Conga, ConnectWise, Crayon: A SoftwareOne Company, Dicker Data, Ericsson, Ingram Micro, Jabra, Kaseya, Leader, NinjaOne, Pax8, Rec4Tech, Tech Data, Thomas Peer Solutions, Wasabi Technologies and Westcon-Comstor.

Congratulations to the 2026 techpartner.news Impact Award winners.

Partner Awards

Customer Experience Partner of the Year

The winner is Falco, for deploying GoTo Connect for Clark Rubber. This rollout was across 66 stores and the head office, and supported over 850 staff. It transformed how the retailer manages customer communications.

Employee Experience Partner of the Year

The winner is Exco Partners, for delivering the Fair Work Commission Customer Service Portal, which provides an end-to-end digital case journey for Australians engaging with workplace dispute services.

Highly commended: nexwave, for migrating Workskil Australia's reporting and analytics environment from Azure Synapse Analytics to Microsoft Fabric in a compressed timeframe, while sustaining validation rigour.

Social Impact Partner of the Year

The winner is Arinco, for working with Ability Roundtable to rebuild the data platform underpinning Australia’s leading disability benchmarking services. The solution gives Ability Roundtable direct control of data and reporting used by NDIS providers to improve services.

Highly Commended:

ONGC Systems, for partnering with youth rehabilitation non-profit Everything Suarve. It designed and implemented a custom Microsoft Power Platform and Copilot solution to reduce administrative burden.
Smile IT, for its work alongside Sunshine Coast Council and WeRide Australia on the RideScore Active Schools Program, which boosted active school travel by 55% across 14 schools on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
Thomas Peer Solutions, for its Triple R initiative, which securely recovers, refurbishes, and redistributes devices to disadvantaged students and schools in Sri Lanka, in collaboration with customers, Dell Technologies, and Dicker Data.

Infrastructure Partner of the Year

The winner is Cevo, for migrating highly complex, large-scale, legacy EnergyAustralia systems to AWS, and enabled a time-critical data centre exit. This provided significant cost savings and risk mitigation.

Highly Commended:

C4X Technology Architects, for a technology transformation for Genea Biomedx. This high-pressure project helped the client separate from another business and took place amid a cyber incident.
Ericom, for upgrading voice, networking and communications infrastructure across 42 sites for Aboriginal Hostels Limited. Ericom and its client contended with remote access, flooding and limited travel windows to deliver this project.

Networking Partner of the Year

The winner is Vectec, for advising on, designing, implementing and managing a modern network security platform across 10 sites for building and construction supplier ForestOne.

Data Partner of the Year

The winner is MicrotechDPS, which worked with Adaca and Insentra to design and deliver a centralised Azure data warehouse for Enterprise & Training Company, a not-for-profit employment services organisation helping Australians facing barriers to employment.

Highly Commended: Syntacks Consulting, which brought together Landcare NSW’s data under one umbrella, community management platform called LINC Digital. It streamlines operations including volunteer coordination, event planning and membership management.

AI Partner of the Year

The winner is HSO, for being the lead delivery partner on the Uniting NSW ACT project to build Buddy - a digital assistant for carers. This provides carer-givers quick access to essential information and note capture, and integrates with Uniting systems.

Highly Commended: Renew IT, for a robotic & AI solution for grading used laptops. It can identify cosmetic damage, determine asset condition, capture serialised data, and decide whether a device should be redeployed, remarketed, harvested for parts, or recycled.

Enterprise Applications Partner of the Year

The winner is Delta Insights, for providing a unified retirement living and home and community care customer platform for South Australian aged care provider ECH, unifying data for 7,500 clients and residents, and 260 staff.

Highly commended:

Avocado Consulting, for resolving Hollard Insurance’s long-running and issue-plagued ICT project to migrate CommInsure policies to a newly installed Duck Creek policy administration platform.
Engage Squared, which transformed one of the world’s largest neurological research registries by delivering iMed Web for MGBase. This supported more than 200 clinics and 122,000 patient records worldwide.

Managed Services Partner of the Year

The winner is Fuse Technology, for transforming IT for strata management business Neighbourly, which had approximately ten businesses, each with its own IT environment. This required services and project management, security architecture, and transformation for the rapidly changing, acquisition-driven business.

Security Partner of the Year

The winner is CyberPulse, for transforming a mature, multi-framework compliance programme for MinterEllison. This replaced manual, audit-driven processes with an automated, AI-augmented GRC architecture.

Highly commended:

CyberCX, for test and validate cyber incident response capabilities for multi-entity crisis coordination and collaboration for Property Exchange Australia. This included designing and executing a credible cyber crisis exercise involving PEXA and the big four major banks.
Platinum Technology, for delivering a Microsoft Purview data protection uplift across the highly complex RSL LifeCare aged care and veterans’ services environment. This covered 14 business units, 30,000+ SharePoint sites and 5.5 million files.

Partner of the Year

The Partner of the Year is Fuse Technology.

Partner Leadership Awards

Finalists in this category led through international expansion, acquisitions and rebrands, changes to operations and strategy, and in some cases, through tough times.

Marketing Leader of the Year: Pattigrace Lupari, Group Head of Marketing, Infotrust
Sales Leader of the Year: Marc Tricksey, National Sales Director, Arinco
Highly commended:
Paul Whiteoak, Chief Revenue Officer, Otto IT
Anita Sheridan-Roddick, Chief Revenue Officer, Baidam
Angela Logan-Bell, Head of Sales – Cloud, Interactive
Community Leader of the Year: Wayne Small, Technology Evangelist, SMBiT Professionals
Highly commended: Sean Dendle, Managing Director, Cymax
Emerging Leader of the Year: Lorelle Tonna, Operations Manager IT, Leader
Highly Commended: Janis Bilston, Head of Project Management Office, Baidam
Technical Specialist of the Year: James Armstrong, Tech Lead, Digital61
Technology Leader of the Year: Devaraj Guganesan, Head of Cloud & Security / Principal Architect, Oreta
Highly Commended: Leo Raikhman, Managing Director, C4X Technology Architects
Business Leader of the Year: Chris Padgett, CEO, Arinco
Highly Commended:
Geoff Boyce, Co-Founder & Director, Precision IT
Chuong Mai-Viet, Managing Director, Fuse Technology
Lisa Fortey, General Manager, Logicalis Australia
Leader of the Year: Chris Padgett, CEO, Arinco

Vendor Awards

Voters’ Choice Award: Lenovo
Partner Program Award: Wasabi Technologies
Highly Commended: ConnectWise
Vendor Impact Award: ConnectWise
Highly Commended: GoTo
Collaboration Award: Microsoft
Leadership Award: Shaun Witherden, Senior Vice President of MSP Enablement APAC, Kaseya
Highly Commended: Victor Guerrero, Vice President of Channel and Alliances, APAC, NinjaOne

Distributor & Marketplace Awards

Voters’ Choice Award: Leader
Partner Enablement Award: Ingram Micro
Highly Commended: Westcon-Comstor
Partner Success Award: Dicker Data
Highly Commended: Crayon, a SoftwareOne Company
Collaboration Award: Dicker Data
Leadership Award: Shannon Handley, Cloud Program Manager, Tech Data
Highly Commended: Caleb Leung, General Manager, Systems and OEM, Ingram Micro