Digital voting debuts at the Loeries

11 Sep 2006

The Loerie Awards this year set a world-first by becoming the first awards to use an innovative digital writing system during its voting process. The digital or ‘magic’ pens (as they were referred to by the judges) were used to collate all of the voting criteria during the intensive week-long judging process. The writing system – which was developed by local printing solution specialists Lithotech and looks set to revolutionise a number of local industries, including health and insurance – was also making its South African data capturing debut.

This year, instead of the traditional pen and paper, judges in the prestigious creative excellence awards were armed with digital versions, tailored for instant downloads and allowing for real-time vote counting. Loeries judge and Creative Circle Chairman, Alistair King, said, “Using the digital pen streamlined the voting process by shortening the waiting time for results between rounds, cutting out the irritation factor. It’s also reassuring to know the results will be more accurate due to the elimination of human error. It just made the whole judging process very slick.”

Andrew Human, Managing Director of The Loerie Awards, said, “This is a real global first in an awards voting process. The advantage of the digital writing solution goes beyond the data capturing service, extending to a digital paper trail for auditing purposes which made the system infinitely more reliable. We’re looking forward to establishing a long relationship with Lithotech and evolving the voting system in the coming years.”

Developed in Sweden four years ago, digital writing has been widely adopted in Europe and the rest of the world. Since then digital writing technology has evolved quickly, with cellular and Bluetooth technology enabling the direct capture of data from remote locations with no more than a digital pen, a cellphone and digital paper.

“Having participated as a regular sponsor of the awards, we’re proud to be playing an integral part this year by facilitating the voting process for the 2006 finalists. The Loeries provided us with the opportunity of facilitating the counting of thousands of entries, all needing to be viewed by specialist panels of over 80 judges – a demanding logistics-intensive test run before introducing our service nationally,” said Lithotech Group Marketing Manager, David Macfarlane.