Airtasker co-founders Tim Fung and Jonathan Lui were announced as joint winners of the 2017 NSW Pearcey Tech Entrepreneur of the Year Award, presented by the Pearcey Foundation.

The awards ceremony, held on Tuesday night and run by ACS, recognised the entrepreneurs for taking risks, making a difference and being an inspiration to the industry.

Co-founder and CEO Tim Fung said they were grateful for the opportunity they’ve got ahead of them to make a positive impact on the future of work.

“We’re super happy to have received the Pearcey Tech Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and to be recognised in the company of some really inspiring Australian entrepreneurs,” he said.

Chairman of Jobs for NSW and Chair of CSIRO, David Thodey, presented the Pearcey award at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum. It was accepted on behalf of Fung and Lui by Airtasker VP of Marketing, Simon Reynolds.

Airtasker VP of Marketing, Simon Reynolds, accepts the award on behalf of co-founders Tim Fung and Jonathan Lui

“It was a great night, and wonderful to see the quality of the entrepreneurs and next generation coming through,” said Thodey.

Airtasker launched in 2012 and was inspired when the co-founders asked a friend with a truck to help them relocate. The once struggling company now boasts over 120 full-time employees, having doubled in the last year, and earnings over $85 million. The Airtasker site has over 1.6 million community members Australia-wide, with more than 800,000 community-verified reviews. Their most recent feat, a $33 million raising effort, has seen them announce Airtasker’s expansion to the UK.

The NSW Pearcey Award judging committee was chaired by Squirrel Street founder Simon Foster, and featured other previous winners of the NSW award.

“The judging committee had a very hard time separating this year’s finalists. There have been some incredible achievements in this group,” said Foster.

The event also featured presentations by the NSW winners of the 2017 Young ICT Explorers award, a pitching competition from start-up companies in NSW university incubators and recognition of the achievements of other NSW tech entrepreneurs.

More information about NSW and other state awards can be found here.