Each year, The Lovies recognises a select number of Special Achievement honourees alongside our winners. These are European innovators who have changed the possibilities for digital work and use the Internet in pursuit of a better world. Learn about the Special Achievement Winners we’re honouring this year on stage at the 9th Annual Lovie Awards.

Eben Upton, Lovie Lifetime Achievement

Eben Upton will receive the 2019 Lovie Lifetime Achievement Award for his pioneering work as the creator of Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Through Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Upton has committed his life and work to helping ensure that children and educators all over the world have access to computing and digital technologies. This crucial work has paved the way for more people everywhere, regardless of circumstance or access, to have the opportunity to not only learn digital computing but to contribute their own technological advancements to society as well.

Upton’s work has hugely contributed to a more digitally literate and technologically empowered society, and furthers digital innovation for the world at large with every passing day.

Evanna Lynch, Lovie Special Achievement

Evanna Lynch will receive a Lovie Special Achievement Award for expertly using the Internet to promote vegan activism and environmental health through social media, podcasting and her own beauty line, KinderBeautyBox.

Lynch deftly leverages her massive following to share and promote meaningful and important content around veganism, and to break traditional barriers to adopting that lifestyle. Whether with KinderBeautyBox, or her podcast The ChickPeeps Vegan Podcast, Lynch devotes her online presence to changing people’s perceptions of veganism, and to introduce much-needed vegan products into the too-often-unethical world of skincare and beauty. In doing so, Lynch raises the bar for others in a position of fame to use the Internet in the most creative and accessible ways possible, to introduce new ideas to people that can truly change our world for the better.

Ashley Walters, Lovie Best Actor

Ashley Walters will receive the Lovie Best Actor Award for his gripping and powerful work in the lead role of Dushane in the Netflix series “Top Boy.” The show is one of the most compelling and original series to reach the streaming world in the past few years–in great part thanks to Walters’ moving and transformative performance.

At a time when streaming series are becoming core to our culture and conversations online, it’s crucial that diverse stories are shared and told from the lens of the communities involved. This makes it all the more important for there to be room for series like “Top Boy” that emphasise the impact and social issues stemming from drug addiction and gangs, poverty and gentrification, from a deeply human centre.

George Mpanga, Lovie Artist of The Year

George Mpanga, famously known as George The Poet, will receive the 2019 Lovie Artist of the Year Award for brilliantly redefining what a podcast can be with ”Have You Heard George’s Podcast?” and for using the medium to shine a light on important cultural issues as a role model to his community.

Mpanga demonstrates that the power of spoken word, when combined with ambient sounds, music, and more, can be a transformative experience for listeners. His episodes aren’t designed just to entertain, but to boldly expose thorny topics such as race, violence, drugs, education, and so much more, that impact unprivileged communities all across London.

His musical poetry, incredible craft and striking voice continue to inspire and touch not only his own community, but also world-renowned figures such as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, as exemplified during Mpanga’s lovely performance at their wedding, and through Mpanga’s ambassadorship work for Prince Harry’s HIV charity, Sentebale.

Grace F Victory, Lovie Creator for Change

Grace F Victory is this year’s Lovie Creator for Change in recognition of her YouTube channel, where she brilliantly and openly tackles important and taboo subjects, to the benefit of millions online across the world.

From opening up about her own struggles with an eating disorder to diving into too-often-considered “taboo” subjects like therapy, trauma, sex and beyond, Grace F Victory has created a space online where people can come to feel seen and to deepen their understanding of what it means to be human.

At a time when hatred and bullying run rampant on the Internet, it is all the more important to have people like Victory who use their voices to amplify kindness and unabashed self-expression in the interest of helping people embrace themselves and one another more fully.

The Co-Founders of Karma

This year’s Lovie Emerging Entrepreneurs are Elsa Bernadotte, Mattis Larsson, Ludvig Berling and Hjalmar Ståhlberg Nordegren, thefounders of the incredible service Karma.

This team of entrepreneurs takes the power of the Internet paired with food even further by making it their mission to ensure no great food is wasted. This is an extremely important issue, with one third of all food produced being wasted annually and taking a massive toll on the environment as a result.

With Karma, not only do Bernadotte, Larsson, Berling, and Nordegren raise awareness about a crucial problem, but they empower people to stop wasting food and to acquire good food for lower prices. Karma has saved hundreds of tonnes of food to date, showing people across Sweden, London, Paris and the greater world as a result what’s possible when the desire to do good for people and the environment is met with the power of the Internet.

Our World in Data, Lovie Be Greater with Data

Our World in Data will receive the 2019 Lovie Be Greater with Data Award in recognition of their outstanding use of data and the internet to supply the general public with understandable data-driven research–the kind necessary to invoke social, economic, and environmental change.

As an antidote to the cynicism that much of the population feels in today’s world–from the war on climate change to poverty and disease–Our World in Data focuses on long-lasting solutions to these issues, with data as its backbone. The birds-eye view that Our World in Data provides gives people everywhere access to digestible, useful information–shared through beautiful data visualisations alongside great storytelling and clear reporting–and delivers the kind of much-needed evidence that our world is actually changing for the better.

Special Achievement Winners will be honoured along with all Lovie Winners at the 9th Annual Lovie Awards on Thursday, 14 November at the British Film Institute, Southbank in London. Subscribe to The Lovie Newsletter to get the highlights from the 2019 Lovie Awards.