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Gold award for Bit Zesty at the Digital Impact Awards 2019

Oct 2019

We’re excited to tell you that Bit Zesty has been awarded Gold for its work with SXT in the Digital Impact Awards 2019 in the ‘best use of digital from the healthcare and pharmaceuticals sector’ category – the 10th award for our SXT project.

The Digital Impact Awards sets the industry-wide benchmark in digital stakeholder engagement and has a long-standing reputation in the digital community as the leading event for honouring the best corporate digital work. This year’s awards ceremony was at the Brewery on Chiswell Street in London and was hosted by comedian Mark Watson.

The winning project

Each year, around 500,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with a Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI). The major challenge is getting diagnosed patients to notify their sexual partners – a conversation nobody wants to have. One organisation attempting to address this problem is SXT, a Community Interest Company (CIC). It engaged Bit Zesty to create a digital service that allows clinicians and patients to notify their previous sexual partners anonymously. Partners receive an SMS message telling them that they need to get tested and helping them find a clinic nearby.

Laura Paplauskaite, founder and managing director at Bit Zesty, said, “TheSXT Partner Notification Service is an amazing project that is not only innovative but also has a profound positive impact on people’s lives. The aim is to reduce the spread of STIs by notifying partners of diagnosed patients – to date, over 14,000 partners have been notified. It is masterminded by our brilliant client, Anatole S Menon-Johansson, the Founder and Director of SXT. 

“Dr Menon-Johansson is passionate about the cause and has devoted his life to it; he is a true visionary – always looking for ways to innovate and push boundaries to achieve real impact. It’s only because he is open to the human-centred approach to creating technology that we were able to achieve such success – in terms of the industry recognition, but ultimately the effect on patients’ lives.

“This award is recognition of all that hard work and positive impact it’s had on patients’ lives as well as healthcare professionals’ time,” added Laura.

What the judges said

“Fantastic idea based on solid research that takes advantage of digital functionalities – texts, geolocation – while respecting the desire for privacy and anonymity,” said one of the judges.

“Good match for the Tinder generation and great results for the society – a truly public service.”

Another judge agreed: “Truly innovative, revolutionary and harnesses advantages of digital: anonymity, speed and link to local clinic. Cannot argue with the hours of work of healthcare professionals saved.”

Bit Zesty rubbed shoulders with some of the industry’s biggest names in the awards categories. The category of ‘Best Use of Digital in Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals Sectors’ was very competitive with only six organisations shortlisted. Publicis Sapient won Gold in the same category for its work with Amplifon for hearing care. Digital leaders to win awards in other categories included Jaguar Land Rover, Merchant Cantos, Hope and Glory PR, TMW Unlimited and the Church of England. 

This is our 10th award for the SXT project. Other awards we’ve won for our SXT project include a BIMA award for Product & Service Design, Design Week Award for App Design in the UK, IF Gold Award for Service Design & UX in Germany and an IDEA Silver Award for Service Design in the USA.

We may run out of space on the office shelf before the year is out!

Interested in working together? Contact us or email [email protected] to discuss how you can transform your service’s impact with a bespoke digital product.


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