Another gong for Smartcompany winner Shane Yeend

SmartCompany 2007 award winner Shane Yeend, founder of interactive entertainment business, Imagination, was named Australia’s Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young.

Yeend which was sixth on the SmartCompany top 50 list with revenue of $57 million, pioneered the DVD game and developed software that allows interactive games to be played on a standard DVD player. Imagination’s business now covers TV, radio, interactive television, digital media production, and games on mobile phones.

Shane Yeend and business partner Kevin McLean celebrate 23 years in business together this year. They started out in 1984

with less than $100,000, making corporate videos and basically struggled for years in the dot-com boom, when at one stage there was only 21 days worth of cash left in the bank. It was the impetus to come up with a great innovation that took this South Australian company global and made it millions.

Caroyln Creswell’s company Carman’s Fine Foods which supplies gourmet muesli to 2000 outlets in Australia won the youth category award. Other award winners are Peter Bender from Huon Aquaculture Group, Tracy Thomson from IT recruitment business, Finite IT Recruitment Solutions and Jack Heath of the Inspire Foundation, which was also in the SmartCompany Top 50 list.