Teesside University graduate helps win Bafta for Paralympic website

A Teesside University graduate whose company designed the Channel 4 Paralympics website is celebrating after picking up a major award at a star-studded ceremony.

The Channel 4 Paralympics website was awarded the prize for Digital Creativity at the recent Bafta Craft Awards held at The Brewery in East London.

Middlesbrough-based sports digital agency 13 Strides helped design the website for Channel 4 along with developers deltatre.

The founder of 13 Strides, Anthony Borsumato, went to the ceremony which was attended by several celebrities and major figures from the television world including Stephen Mangan, Meera Syal, Russell Tovey and Dawn O’Porter.

Anthony, a former international hurdler, enrolled on an MSc in Multimedia Applications at Teesside University after his athletics career came to a premature end through injury.

He then founded 13 Strides in 2006, with his cousin Kevin Allinson, in a business incubation unit at Teesside University.

The company is still based on campus at the Phoenix Building and now employs seven people, all of whom are Teesside University graduates.

Channel 4, who had the exclusive television rights for the 2012 Paralympics, commissioned 13 Strides to work alongside digital solutions specialists deltatre on the website for the games.

The website used high-impact graphics to display key information, results and explanatory features.

It received 18.7 million page views, a record for the Channel 4 brand. Anthony said: 'It was a real privilege to be able to work on something like that.

'Channel 4 were fantastic clients - they’re such a creative company - and to be involved with something like the Paralympics was a real honour.

'It was fantastic feeling knowing that everyone who came through the website had seen all of our work.

'It was a brilliant night at the Bafta awards. We were a bit nervous beforehand and were over the moon to discover we’d won the award.' Anthony also thanked lead designer Sean Keenan for the work he did on the website.'

Laura Woods, Teesside University’s Director of Academic Enterprise, added: 'Channel 4’s Paralympic Games website was a huge success and complemented their excellent coverage of the games. It really deserved the Bafta for Digital Creativity.

'We’re delighted that a Teesside graduate, and a business with its roots in the University, were part of that success.

'The work that 13 Strides did on the website will have been seen by visitors from all over the world and they have really helped to showcase the wealth of digital talent available in this region.'

Channel 4 Multiplatform Commissioning Editor James Rutherford said: 'A large team of people put in a terrific amount of hard work around this project and it’s fabulous they have been recognised on such a prestigious evening.

'I will never forget the great Paralympic moments we all shared in London 2012 and it’s incredibly rewarding that those fantastic achievements by our remarkable athletes are still being talked about now.'

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