A GRADUATE of Bradford College is up for an Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Tech businessman James Genchi, from Oakworth, has been shortlisted in the Leeds Digital Festival Awards.

The awards recognise the commitment and success of individuals and companies in the Leeds City Region.

Mr Genchi, who studied photography and visual arts at Bradford College, recently contributed to a project that won a gold trophy at the London Design Awards and now he is up against four other nominees for the latest title, the winner of which will be revealed at the awards ceremony on April 25 at Headrow House, Leeds.

He said: “I was extremely surprised to be nominated. It is an honour to be included alongside such worthy peers.”

His current project is Emoji Lottery, a lottery that forgoes numbers and replaces them with smiley faces. The free game relies on advertising revenue generated by the site to provide real cash prizes as well as donations to charities.

While still at school, Mr Genchi started an online magazine with his sister. He said: “We originally started on MySpace, I taught myself basic HTML so I could customise our profile. As the site grew, it then became a WordPress site which I designed and built. Over the 11 years we have been running the site we’ve worked with some major brands and also covered large music events like Party in the Park where we interviewed and photographed the artists.”