Entries for the annual Pause Awards opened this week, with CEO and founder George Hedon saying a stellar line up of greater than 60 judges to determine who will get the gongs.

The Pause Awards hand out honours throughout 5 key classes: development, excellence, operators, good and tradition. The awards span Folks’s Selection, Winner, Grand Prix, Corridor of Fame, Champion and the Diamond award for greatest all-round enterprise.

Hedon is straightforward concerning the objective of the Pause Awards, which he began in 2018: “We solely award the actual folks that do actual issues”. 

This 12 months’s judging panel contains specialists in product, development, and innovation at firms akin to Mastercard, Airtasker, Google, Medibank, Dept, AWS, Bookings.com, Microsoft, Birchal and extra.

“We’re extremely excited to have such a various and skilled panel of judges for this 12 months’s Pause Awards,” George Hedon mentioned.

“Their insights and predictions spotlight the dynamic and transformative nature of our {industry}, and we will’t wait to see how these traits will probably be mirrored within the entries we obtain.” 

As entries opened this week – they shut August 18 however stragglers can nonetheless apply till September 1 – a number of members of the judging panel have been requested about how they noticed the 12 months forward, with the responses spanning every little thing from AI transformation to sustainable enterprise practices, and development and innovation.

Some, akin to Nathan Connors from Granicus, are wildly optimistic, predicting: “Australia to win the Rugby World Cup.” 

Doug Rathbone from Airtasker believes financial fundamentals will kick in once more as “product and Tech leaders study to construct profitable and worthwhile companies once more”. Veljko Golubovic from New Second sees “full-scale artistic chaos”, whereas Startupbootcamp Australia’s Trevor Townsend is extra in Survivor mode with ,“a 12 months of turmoil the place the resilient and resourceful thrive!”

Robyn Wilson from Sydney administration guide agency Superora predicts that “we’re going to see an explosion within the ChatGPT Plug-in ecosystem, with service suppliers quickly integrating with AI to allow sooner, extra dimensional service experiences.”

India Gad from Shipeezi foresees “a stronger emphasis on sustainable enterprise practices and the event of clear ESG efforts.” 

In relation to work tradition, Viona Younger from VY Consulting believes that “the realisation that work and life usually are not two separate issues, will proceed and we’ll transfer additional in direction of a human-first strategy to methods of working.” 

Jodette Cleary from hipages sees the same vein, saying “holistic wellbeing will grow to be a very powerful worker profit that firms present, making certain groups are bodily and mentally energised to do their greatest work on a regular basis and we glance after the entire individual, not simply the work individual.” 

In the meantime Stuart B Richardson from Journey Capital predicts “there will probably be step-changes in work and office catalysed by AI & industrial actual property.” 

Among the many large tech gurus Jessica Williams from Google has gone for an oldie however goodie in “disruption, disruption, disruption” whereas Michael Zyla from Mastercard predicts “a 12 months for optimising core buyer worth propositions and securing spend in unstable financial instances.” Sam Ayre from Medibank sees an financial basic saying “worth rises to the highest as value crunch continues”. 

As for industry-specific predictions, Evan Davey from Dept is hoping “blended actuality lastly will get its alternative to go mainstream”

Penelope Shell from advert company OMD ‘s view is that “in a swing again from the hyper native pandemic focus, FY24 would be the 12 months extra Australian based manufacturers develop their footprint globally than ever earlier than.” 

You possibly can enter the Pause Awards right here.