The inaugural awards were held in 2005. The seeds of the idea for an awards program and gala industry event were planted early on at one of the monthly networking get-togethers held by the association, which was then known as Port80. The idea grew, and a number of enthusiastic individuals formed the inaugural WAWAs committee: chairperson Miles Burke, judging chairperson Megyn Carpenter, Matt Didcoe, Myles Eftos, Rosanne Sandars, Kay Smoljak, Sean Steffanoni, Matt Voerman, and Simon Wright.

Industry experts Sonja Bernhardt, Simon Reid, Matt Voerman, and Russ Weakley accepted the invitation to take on the responsibility of judging - probably with no real idea of what they were getting themselves into! Following the detailed evaluation criteria developed by Megyn Carpenter, the judging panel evaluated over 100 categories to come up with 12 winners. WAWA trophies were presented to these “best of the best” at a black tie cocktail party at the Parmelia Hilton Hotel on August 19, 2005.

Of course, an event the scale of which the committee had in mind could not be made reality without the assistance of corporate sponsors. The inaugural WAWAs were made possible by the generous support of the Western Australian Internet Association, Edith Cowan University, Macromedia, W3A, and Sensis.