ITEC Awards Judges 2026
The judges for the 2026 ITEC Awards have been specially selected based on their experience and knowledge of TEC and their profile within the care and support sector. The judges take time out of their busy schedules to read and comment on all submissions for each award category. They score each submission in order to create a shortlist of finalists for each category as well as the overall winner. TSA would like to thank the judges for the time and effort they give in supporting the ITEC Awards.
The Judges for the ITEC Awards 2026 are:
Alyson Scurfield
Chief Executive, TSA
Alyson Scurfield, Chief Executive of the TEC Services Association (TSA) and TEC Quality, leads with a collaborative approach to service transformation in digital health and care. She sets high service quality standards across the UK and Europe and advocates for inclusive ageing as Chair of AgeUK North Tyneside. Alyson champions co-production, placing people, families, and carers at the core of service delivery. Leading TSA’s future vision, she focuses on integrating health, housing, and social care. Through various strategic roles, Alyson works to ensure service transformation is driven by people’s lived experiences.
Geoff Gross
President, Connected Health and Safety Association (USA)
Geoff Gross is the founder and CEO of Medical Guardian, a leading provider of Digital Health & Safety solutions serving over 625,000 active members nationwide. With over two decades of experience in HealthTech, Geoff has built Medical Guardian into a mission-driven company focused on empowering older adults to live a life without limits. Since founding the company in 2005, he has led its growth into a nationally recognized brand, driven by a commitment to innovation, member experience, and expanding access to aging-in-place solutions.
As CEO, Geoff oversees the company’s strategic vision and leads cross-functional teams focused on product transformation, member experience, and growth across both consumer and healthcare channels. Under his leadership, Medical Guardian has launched industry-leading solutions that provide health, wellness and safety services at home and on the go, while advancing the company’s impact on aging and independent living. The company has been recognized multiple times as one of Philadelphia’s “Best Places to Work” and has appeared on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies for 13 consecutive years.
Geoff has been honored as Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year (2019) and a Glassdoor Top CEO (2018 and 2021), and City & State PA’s Healthcare Trailblazer of the Year (2025), and was named to the “Most Admired CEOs” list by the Philadelphia Business Journal. He’s also been recognized as a “40 Under 40” by Philadelphia Business Journal, Direct Marketing News, and Smart CEO Magazine. Geoff currently serves as President of the Board for the Connected Health & Safety Association (CHS), the industry’s sole trade association focused on advocacy and expansion initiatives. He also serves on the board of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society of the Delaware Valley. He is an active member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO).
Prof George Crooks OBE
Chief Executive Officer, Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre
Current Role: Chief Executive of the Digital Health and Care Institute (DHI), Scotland’s national innovation centre for digital health and care.
Mission at DHI: Driving innovation to improve health outcomes, ensure sustainable services, and generate economic benefits. DHI fosters collaboration among public sector, academia, industry, and service users.
Honours: Awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours List 2011 for services to healthcare.
Jane Brightman
Director of Workforce Strategy and Development, Skills for Care
Jane Brightman is Director of Workforce Strategy and Development at Skills for Care, where she leads on the implementation of the adult social care Workforce Strategy for England.
Jane has over 30 years of experience across the adult social care sector including frontline care, leadership, education, digital transformation and national policy.
For 10 years she was Director of a private training organisation specialising in adult social care delivery before going on to national roles supporting training and development in social care.
Jane spent two years at NHSX (now NHS Transformation Directorate) in the blended Digitising Social Care programme as Assistant Director, leading and delivering on the White Paper commitments.
Jane facilitates an online network of leaders in social care with over 9000 members. In 2022 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Arden University for services to social care.
Prof Jonathan Wallace
Professor of Innovation, Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment at Ulster University
Professor Jonathan Wallace is Professor of Innovation within the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment at Ulster University. His excellence in both Knowledge & Technology Transfer and lecturing has been recognised by his being awarded a Distinguished Business Fellowship and Distinguished Teaching Fellowship.
He has led the development of numerous software systems in diverse market sectors and has attained broad experience of managing successful research projects at both a local, national and international level. Jonathan has a significant track record in the field of Digital Health & Wellbeing and is recognised as an innovator in the co-creation of user-centred Digital Health product and service solutions. He is a founder member of the TRAIL Living Lab based at the Ulster University as well as the BCS Health NI Special Interest Group. He is a founder member and Deputy Chair of the Northern Ireland Science Festival. Professor Wallace is a member of the All-Party Advisory Group on Science, Engineering, Technology and Maths for the local devolved Government Assembly. Jonathan is a member of the BCS NI Committee and EDI Lead for BCS NI. He is a board member of the Northern Ireland Trusted Research Environment (NITRE) Strategy Board for the HSC in Northern Ireland and a member of the BSI CH/210/1 – Quality Systems for Medical Devices standards committee working group.
Dr Lynne Douglas
Non-Executive Director, TSA
I have over twenty-five years’ experience as an Executive working with staff within Health, Housing and Social care environments. I am passionate about supporting future leaders and have always enjoyed developing staff within my teams. In recent years I have also developed my non-executive portfolio which has a strong alignment to technology and Digital innovation. I completed my Doctorate in 2017 looking at Organisational readiness for transformational change across Health, Local Authorities and Third sector, through the lens of the Christie Commission report. I very much enjoyed undertaking this research and used the learning regarding culture, change and systems leadership in my day job. I have specialist interests in innovation and how individuals manage change, and mindset shifts, in 2024 I was awarded a Winston Churchill Foundation Travel scholarship which I competed in 2025 visiting New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Hong Kong to explore global perspectives on ‘Which age friendly environments are promoting wellbeing in the elderly’. As a Director of LD Global I am working to help implement the recommendations within my report at a policy, strategic and citizen level.
Prof Martin Green OBE
Chair, TSA and CEO Care England
Martin Green has had an extensive career in NGO development, both in the UK and internationally, and is the Chief Executive of Care England, the largest representative body for independent social care services in the UK. Vice President of The Care Workers Charity, Commissioner of the Royal Hospital Chelsea and Chair of TSA.
In 2013, he was appointed Visiting Professor of Social Care at Buckinghamshire New University.
In 2012, in his role as Department of Health and Social Care Independent Sector Dementia Champion, he led the development of the Dementia Care and Support Compact for the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia.
He is a former named Care Personality of the Year and was awarded an OBE for Services to Social Care in the 2012 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. He received the Health Investor Outstanding Contribution Award.
Martin Green writes and broadcasts extensively on social care issues and is on the Editorial Board of Community Care Market News and Care Talk magazine.
Rich Amos
Lived Experience Adviser
Rich has orientated himself to take up positions across social care, health, housing and technology enabled lives – all of which are aligned to advocating for social justice and elevating how people, who draw on support, should be enabled to live a life of their choosing. He draws on support himself, and is passionate about contributing to agendas that, through the power of co-production and personalisation, create system level change, by being informed by local need.
Rich is an alumni of Leadership for Empowered Communities and Personalised Care, NHS Peer Leadership Development Programme and New Economy Organisers Network (NEON) Movement Builders programme.
Among his diverse range in roles, he is a member of Think Local Act Personal’s (TLAP) National Coproduction Advisory Group (NCAG) and a member of NHS England’s National Improvement Board: IMPACT (Improving Patient Care Together)
Rich currently volunteers as a trustee for charitable organisations and trusts and that have causes about disability and community. He has a passion for understanding how strategic decisions and policy impact on people – and is dedicated to working alongside marginalised groups, as he uses his Level 3 award in Community Organising to stimulate thinking around the power in the possibilities they hold.
Rich uses the intelligence he has gained, though drawing on care and support from 3 different local authorities he’s lived within, to be a trainer on delivering workshops on social care legislation.
Prof Roy Sandbach OBE
Non-Executive Director, TSA
Until January 2026, Professor Roy Sandbach OBE was Interim Chair of TSA. He remains a TSA board member and is vice-chair of Sunderland Ageing Well board. The first director of the National Innovation Centre for Ageing at Newcastle University, he remains a Professor of Practice at the university.
He was founding chair of the North East Innovation Board and chaired Northern Accelerator, the northern universities spin-out collaboration. Roy is Fellow and former Industry Council President of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Roy is a trustee with Laidlaw Multi-Academy Educational Trust.
Previously, Roy spent 31 years with the Procter & Gamble Company. One of his patented inventions is a $150 million business.
Roy was awarded the OBE in 2017 for services to science, innovation & skills.
Stephen Peddie
Care and Health Improvement Adviser (CHIA) for the Southwest Region and national CHIA for Digital Technology in Adult Social Care, Partners in Care and Health (PCH) – a partnership between the LGA and ADASS.
A Social Worker by profession, Steve has worked in a wide variety of roles in local government over 40 years, including Executive Director roles for Adult Social Care, Children’s Services, Public Health and Housing.
Steve currently works for Partners in Care and Health (a partnership between the LGA and ADASS) as the regional Care and Health Improvement Advisor for the South West and he has the national leadership role around promoting digital technology for PCH. He is co-Chair of DSCAG – the Digital Social Care Advisory Group.
Steve is committed to close cross-organisational collaboration and championing innovation that helps people of all ages who draw on care and support, and their family carers, to have a life, not a service.
Steve is also Chair of Child Action Northwest – a charity primarily supporting children, young people and their families.