Technology that supports people

An international jury picked them from 42 submissions from Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas. Twelve finalists from Egypt, Germany, India, the UK and the US made the shortlist. The award is presented by DIGITAL PUBLISHING REPORT and Publishing Perspectives and sponsored by Bookwire and Rakuten Kobo.

Host Erin Cox of Publishing Perspectives named four themes: accessibility as an innovation driver, audio as a growth engine, two finalists from Egypt, and new ways for authors and publishers to work together. Jury member Virginie Clayssen set the tone for the AI debate: “I’m not anti-AI. But we have both worlds, and we don’t have to drop one of them.”

Bookwire Co-CEO John Ruhrmann recalled that he and his co-founder started the company as a startup one and a half decades ago. His first career was in the music industry, where “good music solves a lot of problems.” The same holds for technology, he argued: “Good technology solves a lot of problems.” He hoped the nominees’ work would help publishers fulfill their mission, and he closed with a wink, asking the participants to sponsor the event themselves in a few years.

Michael Tamblyn, CEO of Rakuten Kobo, noted that the award’s submissions have moved over the years from supply chain, metadata and e-commerce through ebooks, e-readers, discovery and advertising to audio and now AI. His central point was attention. In a world where it is “increasingly being carved up and sold off,” publishers and technology providers stand on the other side of that movement, “fighting for longer attention spans, more focus, more empathy, deeper understanding.” Long-form reading isn’t the cure for all social and political challenges, he said, “but it almost always helps and it hardly ever hurts.”

The Chief Operating Officer of the DAISY Consortium has shaped accessible publishing for about two decades. He co-led the development of the EPUB Accessibility standard and drove tools such as ACE by DAISY. Singh could not attend because of a family emergency. Cristina Mussinelli, Secretary General of Fondazione LIA, accepted the award on his behalf and read his words. He thanked the jury and the DAISY Consortium and credited the accessibility movement that DAISY started decades ago. “It has truly been a collective effort,” he wrote.

Founded in 1938 as a publisher, the group has redesigned its business model rather than merely digitizing it. Publishing, digital learning, vocational training, school management and the EdTech investor EdVentures now reinforce one another. CEO Dalia Ibrahim accepted the award and thanked her family and team. In the closing interview she said the group has supported 108 EdTech startups and invested in 29 of them, and 40 percent of the startups are women-led. It also manages three international schools, 15 vocational schools and 16 nurseries. On AI she said: “It’s a great opportunity and a huge threat.” Technology use is a KPI for every department, and her team has been trained for two and a half years.

The software supports audiobook production from script preparation and pronunciation research to AI-assisted proofing and quality control. The jury called it a mature, well-rounded and solid product that helps keep a strong catalog of human-narrated audiobooks. Adam Fritz accepted the award. The company believes AI can “amplify human art form,” he said, and dedicated the prize to the large team in Ukraine, which could not attend.

With ReadBee, a child photographs a printed page, and the app rebuilds it as a dyslexia-friendly reading experience. One in four children struggles with reading, and the jury valued that ReadBee keeps them reading real books. Ignasi Selga and Andreas Schulze accepted the award. Selga said he began programming the app to help his own son, who has dyslexia like him. When a school asked to use it, he brought in Schulze. Thousands of children now use the app.

All winners and the shortlist are on digital-publishing-award.com.