People behind the progress: preparing us for what comes next

People Award

Protecting children and young people online is one of the defining challenges of our digital age, and a priority that continues to command significant public and political attention.

Yoti, co-founded by this year’s People Award winner, Robin Tombs, tells a remarkable business story that tackles the increasing societal problem of data and identity theft.

Twelve years ago, Tombs built a privacy-preserving digital identity and age assurance technology that enables platforms to protect younger individuals, without requiring them to surrender personal data. Today, that vision has positioned Yoti as a trusted name in digital identity, now used by major platforms and globally recognised as a model for how age assurance can be done safely and responsibly.

Society Award

While Yoti’s work focuses on protecting people's data online, this year's Society Award recipient responds to a different kind of safety challenge - safeguarding the wellbeing of both children and adults in the digital world.

Dr Laura Bishop, AI and cyber security digital sector lead at BSI, and this year’s Society Award winner, is making a substantial international impact on online safety, responsible AI, and human-centred technology standards.

Her contributions span AI literacy, chatbot safety, age assurance, and the ethical governance of robotics and immersive technology, ensuring that children and adults alike are protected from psychological harm.

Economy Award

Beyond this focus on safety and wellbeing, technology's impact is just as significant on the economic front, where the priority is how it can effectively drive productivity, efficiency, and business growth across the UK.

This year’s Economy Award turns the spotlight onto an area where technology’s economic potential is increasingly evident - healthcare.

The winner, Professor Sir Peter Donnelly, CEO at Genomics, has spent his career turning genetic science into preventative healthcare technology; contributing to the NHS’s 10-Year Plan commitment to roll out polygenic risk score testing by 2035, a move expected to prevent over 45,000 heart attacks and strokes and save the NHS more than £235m over the next decade.

This has the potential to transform lives, saving tens of thousands of people from life-altering medical events while easing the growing pressure on NHS resources.

Planet Award

There is often commentary that digital technology is detrimental to a sustainable planet. This year’s Planet Award illustrates the other side of the story - how technological innovation is being put to work protecting, restoring, and sustaining the natural world.

Isobel Ashbey, sustainable technology consultant at Cambridge Consultants, is a visionary leader, directing world-class science and technology towards some of Earth’s biggest challenges.

By applying her expertise to biodiversity protection and climate action, through a variety of high-impact projects, including AI-enabled human-wildlife coexistence tools and genetic diagnostics to combat wildlife tracking, she has democratised biodiversity monitoring and put low-carbon tools in the hands of non-governmental organisations and the communities who need it most.

Isobel’s contributions stand as proof that technology, applied with purpose, can be one of the most powerful allies in the fight to protect our planet, making her an outstanding winner of this year’s Planet Award.

Despite working across distinct fields, all four individuals share a common purpose: harnessing technology for good and creating meaningful change across people, policy, and the planet. This shared drive, focus, and value system unites them in their ambition to deliver a positive impact, one that transforms the way we live today while preparing us for what comes next.

In honouring their achievements, we celebrate not just what technology can deliver, but what it can do for us all.