Wednesday 17 June was a special event in the Parnell Business Association’s Calendar—our second annual Parnell Innovation Awards. Our members turned up to The Icehouse to celebrate the spirit of innovation that builds a meaningful legacy for the future—recognising both startups and established businesses whose creative ideas and projects positively impact people, the environment, or the community. For this year’s award, we expanded our eligibility criteria to include entries from all sectors in Parnell, provided the innovation or project itself was recent, original, and the company was locally based in Parnell.
Returning to our judging panel were PBA Chair Brad Jacobs, and independent judges Jillian De Beer and Josephine Rudkin-Binks. They assessed a record number of incredible entries against their judging criteria, looking for innovations that:
- Were original, creative and unique in their idea, product or approach
- Provided measurable benefit to people, business, and/or environment
- Had been effectively implemented
- Offered potential scalability and influence beyond Parnell
WINNER
The winner of our 2026 Innovation Award was NZ Opera, who are using technology to make opera more accessible.
Through their Live Language Access initiative, NZ Opera has transformed how audiences experience live opera by delivering real-time multilingual translations directly to personal devices and enabling a world-first experience for braille readers.
The judges were impressed not only by the technology itself, but also by its ability to increase accessibility, broaden participation, and create a more inclusive cultural experience.
It’s an outstanding example of innovation creating meaningful social impact.
RUNNER-UP
Our runner-up this year was Daisy Lab, a company developing technology that could significantly reshape one of New Zealand’s most important industries.
Daisy Lab is pioneering precision fermentation technology to produce dairy proteins without cows. Their innovation has the potential to dramatically reduce the environmental footprint of dairy production while maintaining the taste, quality and functionality consumers expect.
The judges were impressed by the scientific excellence, commercial potential and international significance of this innovation.
SPECIAL RECOGNITION AWARD
This year, the judges felt there was one organisation that deserved special recognition.
Neocrete has developed a proprietary activator that transforms waste fly ash into a high-performance cement replacement.
The judges were impressed by both the scale of the opportunity and practicality of the solution. It’s a great example of innovation delivering environmental, economic and industry benefits all at once.
FINALISTS
We also wanted to offer our congratulations to our other three finalists, listed in alphabetical order:
- Breast Cancer Foundation New Zealand: For ABCprod, a digital health platform providing proactive support for people living with advanced breast cancer and helping improve quality of life through earlier intervention and specialist care.
- Pictor: For creating a New Zealand-developed proteomics platform that makes advanced protein testing more practical, scalable and accessible.
- Preformance Technologies: For Asset Memory, a platform that preserves critical construction and infrastructure knowledge to improve long-term asset management and decision-making.
Congratulations to our finalists and winners, and thank you to everyone in the Parnell business community who came and celebrated with us. We would also like to thank all of our sponsors: Icehouse, Outset Ventures, Cahill Accounting, Founder Media Group, Ernst & Young, and The Paddington.
