Urjanet, the global leader in utility data aggregation, today announced a call for nominations for the 2019 SPARK Awards, which recognize industry pioneers making innovative uses of utility bill data to better serve consumers, clients, community partners and the global environment. Winners of the inaugural SPARK Awards will be selected by a panel of distinguished experts and presented with their awards at the closing ceremony of SPARK 2019, Urjanet's annual customer conference, April 25-26, at the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center in Atlanta. The deadline for nominations is March 29 .

The SPARK Awards will honor companies in four categories:

Leader in Energy & Sustainability

This award will be presented to a large-scale commercial company that is using utility data to achieve significant energy efficiency or sustainability targets across the business

Leader in Community Engagement

Recognizing innovation making clean energy more accessible to a broader population using utility data and utilizing community engagement initiatives to support and expand clean energy adoption

Most Innovative Use of Utility Data

This award will recognize an innovation transforming the use of utility data in ways that have never been seen before, addressing new markets and doing good with data

Leader in Financial Inclusion

An innovative company in the financial services industry will be awarded based on using new technology or risk scoring models to expand credit access to the underbanked

The judging panel, led by Urjanet CEO, Sanjoy Malik, is composed of respected industry media, analysts and enterprise executives. All current Urjanet customers are eligible to submit. The judging criteria includes an assessment of applicants' impact within the scope of the award category and evaluation of how it harnessed automated utility data to solve its business problems and scale. One winner from each category will be announced April 25.

Entry forms must be completed and submitted by March 29, 2019; there is no nomination fee. Interested participants can find the nomination form here, or it can also be obtained and submitted by emailing spark(at)urjanet(dot)com.

"SPARK is a highly engaging event for our customers, allowing them to learn from their peers and industry leaders about the various ways that utility bill data can transform business--from impacting sales to expanding credit to the underbanked to achieving ambitious energy efficiency objectives," said Sanjoy Malik, CEO of Urjanet. "The addition of the awards program will give companies the platform to showcase their commitment to applying innovative and new approaches to achieve meaningful and quantifiable business results. We are excited to see who makes it to the winners circle and celebrate their achievements with them."

The SPARK Award is just one element of Urjanet's dynamic SPARK event, a two-day conference filled with insightful presentations, educational workshops and networking. Considered a not-to-be-missed event, SPARK is where leading organizations like Coca-Cola, UPS, Schneider Electric, Newell-Rubbermaid, Siemens, and General Electric discuss how they achieve their goals by putting their utility data to work.