The manager of a Galway-based software firm has won a European entrepreneurs' award for use of technology in business. Ms Anne Downey, managing director of Q-Set, will receive her prize as 1997 European Women Entrepreneur next week in Stockholm. The award, sponsored by the EU and the European Business and Innovation Centre Network, highlights the work of the top five female executives in Europe.

Ms Downey, a native of Banbridge, Co Down, founded the company five years ago to improve business software. The firm now employs 20 people and exports business software to 18 countries on four continents.

Its customers include Pepsi-Cola, Guinness, SITA, United Distillers and Electrolux.

An arts graduate who later qualified as a solicitor before becoming interested in technology and software, Ms Downey said she was delighted to have been chosen and would make a speech at the award ceremony.