Askew Brook has been named a finalist in two categories at the Yorkshire Tech Awards 2026. The business is shortlisted for Tech Team of the Year, while Managing Director Richard Askew is a finalist for Tech Leader of the Year.
For a seven-person technology business based in Scarborough, the recognition follows a year in which the most important changes have been technical. We have changed how we build software, developed more of our own AI infrastructure and taken on work that connects increasingly complex systems with the people using them day to day.
Building Love Me Tender
A central part of that story is Love Me Tender, an AI-enabled platform designed to change how organisations discover, assess and respond to tender opportunities.
The product combines AI with structured data, carefully designed workflows and bespoke software engineering. It is not a chatbot placed over a collection of documents. The difficult work sits around the model: turning inconsistent tender material into usable information, reflecting real procurement structures and giving people a clear, auditable way to work through complex decisions.
Love Me Tender represents a significant step for the team. We have moved from using AI to support our own work to engineering it into a purpose-built product addressing a genuine commercial problem.
More complex operational software
Our work with Deep Sea Electronics is another strong example of that progression. We have developed operational software connecting handheld scanning and factory-floor workflows with back-office systems, supporting stock movements, manufacturing processes and validation at the point where the work happens.
That kind of project is less about a single screen or feature and more about understanding how a real operation fits together. The software has to work with existing systems, give people the right information at the right moment and handle the exceptions that appear in day-to-day production.
Other recent work shows the breadth around those larger technical projects. We worked with Sail Creative on the technical delivery of a clearer, accessible website for Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit. We built Stockeld Park's ordering and fulfilment platform, bringing customer management, commercial orders, stock allocation, yard preparation, payments and multi-location delivery into one operational system. We also delivered a replacement gift voucher platform for the Michelin-starred Pipe and Glass, integrating it with the restaurant's existing systems.
AI as part of the working day
AI has also become part of the team's normal way of working across software development, QA and code analysis, technical documentation, research, meeting capture and knowledge management.
There was no formal, top-down ‘AI transformation’ programme. People experimented, found applications that were genuinely useful and incorporated them into their normal workflows. AI supports the work, but architecture, review, testing, technical judgement and responsibility for client outcomes remain with the team.
We have also built our own internal Portal and Model Context Protocol (MCP) infrastructure. This allows AI tools to work with structured business, project and customer information, rather than relying only on isolated conversations in off-the-shelf chat tools.
Practical technology leadership
Richard's Tech Leader of the Year finalist place reflects the same practical approach: begin with the problem rather than the technology, avoid chasing trends for their own sake and give technically capable people enough autonomy for useful ideas to develop within the team.
That work around practical AI adoption has also taken Richard to York Business School and the Unlimited Business Expo at Magna as a speaker, with an invitation to speak at the University of Hull.
The two finalist places follow Askew Brook being ranked #76 in the Elite Business 100 and shortlisted for Cisco Innovation of the Year earlier in 2026. Those are useful markers, but the more important story is the change behind them: a small Scarborough team building its own AI capability and applying it to increasingly sophisticated, real-world systems.
The Yorkshire Tech Awards ceremony takes place at New Dock Hall in Leeds on 16 December 2026.