Laura Overton wins inaugural Special Achievement Award at the E-Learning Awards
Industry backing for her outstanding contribution was illustrated with standing ovation.
Laura Overton, Managing Director of Towards Maturity wins the 2012 E-Learning Age Special Achievement Award.
In the judges' citation, it was recognised that 'Laura has campaigned and worked tirelessly for over 20 years to improve the impact of learning technologies at work. She has driven business results, helping employers fulfil the potential for learning technologies at work. She has closed the gap between government policy and employer needs, supported excellence in the industry and encouraged effective good practices worldwide. Her ground breaking research has led to a comprehensive model of good practice freely available to any organisation helping them to navigate their way through industry hype and improve'
On hearing about the award, Karen Price, CEO Sector Skills Council said, "We are pleased that Laura has won this award, she has made an enormous contribution to e-learning over many years. Her skills, knowledge, passion and leadership have brought together a fragmented sector, which is now making a real difference to the lives and skills of so many people."
Nearly 500 people gathered to celebrate industry excellence at the E-Learning Awards gala evening on the 8th of November. A record 43 bronze, silver and gold awards were handed out. The winners included six Towards Maturity Ambassadors - QA, Epic, Redware, LINE, Brightwave and Kallidus.
Laura Overton set up the Towards Maturity's Ambassador Programme
over two years ago. 21 leading learning specialist
companies make
up the programme, which work together as ambassadors for change,
identifying and improving good practices, raising awareness and
driving the whole learning technology industry forward.
Piers Lea, Founder and CEO, from founding ambassador LINE
Communications said, "Laura is an enthusiast for our industry above
all others. She has worked well beyond the call of duty to
establish hard facts, figures and benchmarked best practice to
support that enthusiasm. Anyone who enters this field and does not
use the Towards Maturity data will be the poorer for it. When you
see what she has collected you will marvel at both her vision
and
tenacity."
Towards Maturity has for many years worked closely with the E-Learning Awards as a good practice partner. E-learning age supports the Towards Maturity Benchmark Study, the largest benchmark study of its type in Europe. This year a staggering 500 organisations took part in the study.
Laura Overton said, "I am so proud to receive this award. I am passionate that this industry learns from each other, especially when it comes to technology. That is why I started the Towards Maturity Benchmark Study nine years ago, my thanks to e.learning age for this prestigious award and the 2200 companies that have contributed to my benchmark."
The Towards Maturity Benchmark Study report entitled Bridging
the gap - integrating learning and work, can be downloaded from
November 22nd from http://towardsmaturity.org/shop/.
On the same day you can hear the findings of the report on a
Learning and Skills webinar:
registration for the webinar is available at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TM12Benchmarklaunch
The report is free thanks to the support of the Towards Maturity's Ambassador Programme which includes the following founding ambassadors Brightwave, Epic, GlobalEnglish, LINE Communications, The Corporate eLearning Consortium, successfactors, Redtray and The Charity Learning Consortium, plus CERTPOINT Systems, Speexx, Fusion-Universal, Information Transfer, learndirect, Toolwire, e2train, QA, Ontuitive, MindLeaders, Upside Learning, IMC and Redware.
To read more industry reactions to Laura winning the award visit http://www.towardsmaturity.org/article/2012/09/03/elearning-awards-2012-shortlist-announced/.