DotPerformance was selected as a finalist in the Isle of Man Innovation Challenge 2026, placing in the top 16 from 125 entries across 25 countries. The programme was led by Digital Isle of Man in partnership with the Department of Health and Social Care, Manx Care and Public Health Isle of Man, with finalists competing in the Working Smarter category.
We applied on the strength of a bank and locum booking platform already running across Manx education. That is not what we ended up presenting.
The ten-week programme put finalists in direct contact with clinicians, policymakers and frontline professionals. Those sessions changed our understanding of the problem. Booking was real, but it was a symptom. The harder issue sat in the gaps between workforce systems, where the same information gets entered more than once, where handoffs break, and where nobody has a complete picture. The proposition changed shape as a result: from one useful tool to a single workforce platform, built from components we already have in production.
The finale was held at the Comis Hotel on 25 June, with more than 200 healthcare professionals, policymakers, business leaders and community organisations in attendance. Judging was split between an expert panel and an audience vote. We had ten minutes.
The deck was built for exactly that mix: plain enough to earn a public vote, precise enough for a chief executive, with no slide carrying more than three points. Every figure was checked back to source. Anything we could not stand behind came out.
The ten weeks gave us something more durable than a podium finish: direct access to the people who do the work, and a proposition tested against reality rather than assumed on their behalf. Those conversations did not end at the Comis.
