Brilliance Awards Winners 2021

In 2021, we issued six honorary Brilliance Awards in recognition of incredible innovation, success and performance to organizations and leaders in Singapore, Mexico, Estonia, UK and USA.

Awarded to Deyan Dimitrov, Founder & CEO at Laundryheap, UK

Deyan Dimitrov earned the Digital Growth Leadership Award in 2021, for masterminding the strategic vision that turned Laundryheap into a highly integrated, frictionless digital ecosystem. As Founder and CEO, he championed the digital-first pivot toward an embedded-service model, ensuring the platform was designed for rapid integration into external consumer networks. Under his leadership, the business seamlessly embedded its digital booking experience within the apps of global giants like Tesco, Revolut, and Premier Inn. This strategic growth direction successfully placed Laundryheap’s services directly inside the digital spaces where customers already transact, setting a new benchmark for automated, on-demand customer acquisition.

Awarded to DBS Bank, Singapore & AsiaPacific

In 2021, DBS Bank set the absolute standard for enterprise scale by launching the DBS Digital Exchange (DDEx), a blockchain-native, institutional ecosystem for asset tokenization and secondary cryptocurrency trading. Simultaneously, they scaled their AI-driven NAV Planner utilizing over 100 deep machine learning models to deliver automated wealth management. This comprehensive digital-first pivot completely transformed traditional institutional finance, allowing DBS to operate with the agility of a tech giant while providing frictionless remote access to banking infrastructure across Asia during ongoing pandemic lockdowns.

Awarded to Clara, Mexico

In late 2021, Clara became the fastest startup in Latin American history to achieve unicorn status, reaching a $1 billion valuation just eight months after launch. They won the award for their exceptional digital skill in launching a unified B2B spend platform. The ecosystem seamlessly replaced cash-heavy manual corporate tracking with instant virtual card issuance and automated digital accounting across thousands of rapidly scaling regional enterprises.

Awarded to Duolingo, USA

In 2021, Duolingo executed a masterfully disruptive organic digital marketing strategy by turning their mascot, Duo the Owl, into a viral TikTok influencer. By leaning into chaotic, trend-jacking video content rather than traditional paid advertising, they racked up billions of organic views, fundamentally changing how brands approach social media entertainment and driving massive global user acquisition.

Awarded to Government of Estonia for E-Estonia

Already a pioneer in digital governance, Estonia introduced the world’s first fully digital, AI-driven judge and legal assistant framework (“bureaukratt”) in 2021. The voice-activated digital assistant allowed citizens to complete all governmental tasks—from renewing passports to filing small claims—through unified, automated conversational AI, pushing digital citizenship to its absolute frontier.

Awarded to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) & Verizon, USA

With physical tourism restricted, The Met launched The Met Unframed. This highly creative digital experience utilized immersive augmented reality (AR), 5G streaming, and gamified web design to bring high-resolution, interactive 3D galleries directly into citizens’ living rooms globally, allowing users to virtually “borrow” and examine priceless historical artifacts on their device screens.