The winners of the 2006 World Class New Zealand Awards were:

Supreme Award: Professor Alan MacDiarmid

Information & Communications Technology: Dr Mark Billinghurst

Creative Industries: Brent Hansen

Biotechnology: Dr Simon Moroney

Manufacturing: Ken Stevens

Research, Science, Technology & Academia: Professor Peter Gluckman

Finance, Investment & Business Services: Christopher Liddell

In the simplest terms, Professor Alan MacDiarmid was integral in working out how to make plastic conduct electricity.

The discovery has had innumerable practical applications such as plastic rechargeable batteries, plastic electronics, light-excluding windows, mobile phone displays and even the potential for watch-sized computers and environmentally friendly electricity. He was a hero of the information age.

Professor MacDiarmid and his research team were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000, making him only the second ever New Zealand born and educated Nobel Prize winner.

At the start of his long career, a Fulbright Fellowship and Shell Scholarship enabled Prof MacDiarmid to gain doctorates at the University of Wisconsin and Cambridge University respectively. He joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in 1955, where he held the distinguished position of Blanchard Professor of Chemistry from 1988 until his death in February 2007.

Prof MacDiarmid was the author or co-author of some 600 research papers and 20 patents and the recipient of numerous awards, such as the 1999 American Chemical Society Award in Materials Chemistry.

He always retained ties with New Zealand, both personally and professionally. He was a key figure at conferences on conducting polymers and collaborated with colleagues at the Industrial Research Laboratories and at Victoria University of Wellington, where he first studied chemistry.

The University accorded him an honorary doctorate in 1999 and in 2001 created the Alan MacDiarmid Chair in Physical Chemistry. In 2000, the Royal Society of New Zealand awarded him its top honour, the Rutherford Medal, and in 2002 he became a Member of the Order of New Zealand, New Zealand's highest accolade.

Professor MacDiarmid continued with his pioneering research and eminent university positions around the world until his death in February 2007. His contribution to science and, more widely, the quality of human existence, was exceptional - and supremely world class. Read the tribute to Professor MacDiarmid.

Dr Mark Billinghurst is a world-leading researcher developing radical computer technology. His cutting-edge exploration is making major inroads in the merger of real and virtual worlds, so people in different places can share the same reality and work together.

Dr Billinghurst graduated from Waikato University with Bachelor's and Master's degrees. In 2002, he completed a Doctorate in electrical engineering at the University of Washington. As part of his research, Dr Billinghurst invented the Magic Book, an animated children's book that springs to life with three-dimensional virtual reality images seen through a head-mounted viewer. He was one of eight innovators and entrepreneurs showcased at the Carter Holt Harvey New Zealand Innovation Pavilion at the America's Cup Village (2002-2003), where he exhibited a three-dimensional account of the history of the Cup.

In 2004, Dr Billinghurst was nominated for a prestigious World Technology Network Award in the education category. He was appointed to the New Zealand Government's Growth and Innovation Advisory Board in 2005.

Dr Billinghurst returned home to New Zealand after working in esteemed research laboratories in Japan, Britain and America to become the New Zealand director of the Human Interface Technology Lab at the University of Canterbury. He is also a research scientist at its sister laboratory at the University of Washington.

February 2006 saw Brent Hansen's resignation from an extraordinary position of power in the world's entertainment industry. After nearly 19 years with MTV Networks International (MTVNI), Mr Hansen left the company as its President of Creative and Editor-in-Chief.

Promoted to that position in 2003, Mr Hansen was responsible for overseeing creative and editorial endeavours for MTV's 97 international channels, as well as branding, creative, music, programming and editorial output for all global initiatives led by MTVNI.

Starting as a news producer, he had worked his way to the rank of Chief Executive of MTV Networks Europe by 1997. In that role, Mr Hansen headed a staff of 1,200 to prescribe the television music diet of around 120 million homes across Europe.

The former Television New Zealand producer with a Master's degree in old English Literature has been instrumental in backing the music careers of Kiwis in the UK. He was also a major supporter of the 2000 retrospective exhibition of New Zealand's modernist artist Len Lye, at the celebrated Pompidou Centre in Paris, and broadcast his avant-garde films across his network.

Mr Hansen was recently in New Zealand as a guest presenter at 'Resonate', a seminar to inspire the New Zealand music industry run by the British Council, Mai FM and the New Zealand Music Industry Commission.

Dr Simon Moroney is Chief Executive and co-founder of MorphoSys AG, a Germany-based company actively engaged in drug development partnerships and clinical trials.

Dr Moroney studied chemistry in New Zealand, completing a Master's degree before being awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he attained a doctorate in 1984.

From then until 1986 he was an Associate at the Harvard Medical School and an employee of ImmunoGen Inc., where he worked on the first generation of anti-cancer antibody conjugates. He lectured at Harvard University and in Switzerland, and held senior positions in pharmacology at the University of Cambridge and University of British Columbia.

Dr Moroney was recognised by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany with the German Cross of the Order of Merit in 2002 - the highest order of merit ever granted a foreign national - for his services to the biotechnology industry.

He has considerable experience in mergers and acquisitions and capital-raising in both the US and Europe. Through MorphoSys AG, he actively seeks collaborative relationships with New Zealand businesses.

In 2005, Dr Moroney spent several weeks here working with NZ Trade and Enterprise to facilitate knowledge with local companies. He was also guest speaker at 'BioEurope' in Dresden in 2005, promoting the New Zealand/New Thinking high technology brand in Europe.

Ken Stevens is the founder, owner and executive chair of Glidepath Limited, a company he's grown to an estimated worth of $500 million.

Glidepath is an engineering company specialising in computerised airport baggage handling, baggage security, cargo handling and parcel sortation systems.

The company has a true international focus: since its inception in 1972, Glidepath has been involved in some 426 projects in 31 countries around the world.

It has two manufacturing facilities in the United States, and subsidiary companies in Canada, Latin America and Australia. It also has manufacturing operations in Auckland, where the Glidepath head office is still located.

Mr Stevens completed a formal apprenticeship in tool and die making with notable Auckland firm, Eric Paton Ltd, standing him in good stead for his lifelong business activities, and in particular for mechanical engineering and precision machining.

Because of his outstanding business endeavours during the last three decades, Mr Stevens was overall winner at the Bank of New Zealand Waitakere City Business Awards in 2005, at which Glidepath was inducted into the Waitakere Business Hall of Fame. He was also a finalist in the Ernst & Young 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year awards.

Glidepath also won the 2005 Waitakere Business Awards supreme award plus two category awards, including Best Exporter.

Professor Peter Gluckman is a New Zealand-trained, internationally distinguished scientist. His research focuses on brain injury, the lifelong effects of poor nourishment in the womb and the application of evolutionary theory to human medicine. He led the development of the first-ever treatment for babies brain-damaged during birth.

Professor Gluckman has played a major role in national science and health policy, and advises international organisations including the World Health Organisation on optimising the outcomes of pregnancy and infant health.

He is a Fellow of the Commonwealth's most elite scientific organisation, the Royal Society of London, an honour bestowed on just 37 New Zealand-born scientists since the Society's establishment in 1660. He is the only New Zealander elected to the US National Academies' Institute of Medicine.

Professor Gluckman stepped down as Dean of the University of Auckland's Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences to found the Liggins Institute which brings together more than 30 research scientists performing groundbreaking work in the areas of gestation, birth and growth.

The establishment of this world-class research unit directly reflects Professor Gluckman's belief in the importance of fostering a knowledge generation as the harbinger of future economic growth in New Zealand.

A Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to medicine, Professor Gluckman was the 2001 recipient of New Zealand's top science award, the Rutherford Medal.

As Chief Financial Officer of the global giant software corporation Microsoft, Christopher Liddell is responsible for leading its finance organisation as well as overseeing accounting and reporting, strategic planning and analysis, treasury, tax, audit, and investor relations.

Before joining Microsoft, Mr Liddell was Chief Financial Officer at International Paper, the world's largest forest products company. Prior to that, he was Chief Executive Officer of Carter Holt Harvey, New Zealand's second-largest listed company. He has also served as Managing Director and Joint Chief Executive Officer for CS First Boston NZ Ltd.

Mr Liddell holds an engineering degree from the University of Auckland and a Master of Philosophy degree from Oxford University in England. He is a distinguished alumnus of the University of Auckland.

Mr Liddell also served as Chairman of the leading New Zealand environmental protection group Project Crimson, which is working to save the endangered pohutakawa and rata trees.

He is an avid sportsman who enjoys rugby, golf and tennis. Mr Liddell has completed a number of triathlons, and served as both governor of the New Zealand Sports Foundation and director of the New Zealand Rugby Union.