An Irish entrepreneur has scooped Australia’s top award for ‘Women in Tech’ start-ups.
Annie Slattery, an entrepreneur originally from Clontarf, launched ConX in 2014, to digitally transform how construction contractors find and acquire work.
The Dubliner, who left Ireland to go travelling around the world in early 2009, has spent most of her time overseas living and working in Sydney, where she and co-founders Keith Moore and David Stenson run ConX, a construction jobs website that matches tradespeople to building contractors.
The award was part of a pitch competition in the wake of the largest women technologists’ conference, the Grace Hopper Celebration, Hopper Down Under held in Australia for the first time earlier this week.
The event saw Australia’s most impressive women in tech pitch their big ideas in Brisbane on 2 August for a share in more than $100,000 in business support services, and the potential for further venture capital investment to grow their global businesses.
Over 100 women-led tech start-ups applied to compete for a pool of prizes which including mentoring packages and business service help.
Eleven women reached the final of the competition which celebrated Grace Hopper – an American Computer Scientist, US Navy Admiral and Computer Scientist – of which Annie came out with a prize.
“This prize represents a fantastic opportunity for ConX to expand into global markets, with the United States top of our list in terms of the size of the market and the potential for digitisation in the construction sector,” Ms Slattery said.
“Keith (Moore), my husband, and I settled in Australia by chance some 10 years ago. I was originally working in Corporate Finance and Keith had his own carpentry business," she continued.
"We quickly identified an opening in the market for a ‘tradies’ recruitment site, dedicated to SME contractors. Now we have expanded into specialist services across a range of areas including online tendering.
"The market is now ripe for transformation and ConX is at the forefront, which was recognised by the judges this week.”
ConX’s core team are all Irish born.
Launched in 2014 by Annie Slattery and her husband Keith Moore, also originally from Clontarf, the company currently employs 12 people from its head office in Sydney with turnover for 2020 forecast at circa AUD $2.5 Million.
Jonathan Clarke from Kerry came on as CTO in mid-2015, while Jonathan Slattery, is ConX’s Digital Marketing Director.
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