By Business & Finance 
Maryrose Lyons, founder, Brightspark Consulting
A website detailing how Irish local authorities source and spend public funding has won a prestigious international digital innovation award.
Localauthorityfinances.com has been declared a winner in the ‘e-Government and Open Data’ category of the UN-based World Summit Awards.
The site was developed by the Dublin-based content marketing company Brightspark Consulting on behalf of Publicpolicy.ie, a think-tank that works to promote better economic, social and environmental policies.
Two other Irish sites, CoderDojo.com and PledgeSports.org, were also declared winners and will receive their awards at the WSA Global Congress in Shenzhen, China next February.
Maryrose Lyons, founder, Brightspark Consulting, said: “For a small country like Ireland to be winning three of the 40 awards this year is truly remarkable. Over 386 nominations were received, and the winners come from 24 different countries. So Ireland is really punching above our weight in this competition, and I think that’s testament to the fact that we have excellent digital and creative talent here.”
Localauthorityfinances.com went live in the lead-up to the 2014 local elections, with the aim of making information on local authorities’ income and expenditure easily accessible to the general public.
Prior to its success at the World Summit Awards, the website won ‘Best New App’ at the Irish Web Awards last year.
