CIO100 Awards now goes Africa with a target of over 500 entries for the upcoming tech excellence awards scheduled for November this year.
Previously CIO100 Awards covered East Africa but now the tech excellence has extended its mission to cover the rest of Africa including the West, North, and South of Africa.
According to the Chairman of CIO100 Africa Awards, Harry Hare, the expanded scope will allow for a wider spectrum review of more companies consuming and producing tech in various verticals not limited to Manufacturing, Agriculture, Construction, Financial Services, Hospitality, Telecommunications, Mobile, IT Technologies such as A.I, Cybersecurity, Big Data, Cloud Technology among others
“CIO100 Awards has been focusing on the East African market for the last 10 years. But we recently rebranded to CIO Africa expanding our mandate across Africa. That means even for the tech excellence awards that it will now cover entire Africa with a focus to West Africa, South Africa, and North Africa not excluding East Africa.”
Hare says that this year’s reviews will also majorly focus on major technologies that were highly used during the beginning and continuation of the Covid-19 pandemic:
“More than the previous years, Covid 19 pandemic brought in a new paradigm shift to the consumption of IT solutions and services. As we review the entries we will also look at those major technologies that made an impact during this pandemic and how the consumer companies improved on their services and sales especially when we look into their ROI.”
To be at the top 100, companies will be required to showcase their ability to successfully apply technology in their business processes and achieve a return on investment:
“We look at a common feature across all excellence models as part of our general assessment structure when doing the audit. The assessment, therefore, emphasizes the relationship between two key aspects: Business processes and business results.”
On the other hand, in 2020, Jaine Mwai, CIO at Standard Chartered Bank, Kenya bagged the CIO of the Year Awards making history as the first-ever woman to win this award in the 12-year history of the East African CIO 100 Symposium and Awards.
Mwai bested her peers, accomplished applicants who were shortlisted from over 300 to the highly acclaimed 100, hence CIO100. Some of the very interesting projects handled complex situations such as telemedicine, the use of chatbots and AI, as well as the digitization of the customer service experience.
These are projects that fit in seamlessly with the universal customer experience during COVID-19 times by placing the customer at the center of the solutions. Mwai not only pulled ahead with the judges but she was also nominated by the CIOs themselves as the leader of the pack.
“Each year we see the spirit of positive competitiveness amongst senior IT professionals. This year is unique in that we have our first ever female CIO winning this award. We are very proud of Jaine Mwai and acknowledge her contribution to the technology industry and community,” said Andrew Karanja, Director, CIO East Africa.
At the same time, BIDCO bagged the overall winner award last year. This award recognizes the company that emerges top on both the qualitative and quantitative scores by the panel of judges. Last year, Bidco beat a field of more than 300 contenders for this award.
The regional CIO100 Africa Awards celebrate companies from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania for their innovative use of IT. The awards ceremony is an offshoot of the global CIO100 Awards which have been held for over two decades, during which time the awards have identified and recognized 100 companies that demonstrate excellence and achievement in IT across the globe:
“Join us and discover the latest fresh insights and ideas on the future of the digital enterprise, business transformation, mobility strategies, enterprise security, predictive analytics among other special topics that will be discussed at this occasion,” says Andrew Karanja, CIO100 Awards Africa Marketing Director.
The top CIO100 companies will be announced during the annual CIO100 Awards Africa Symposium and Awards, a 2-day high energy celebration of IT excellence that will be marked with networking opportunities and knowledge sharing in Mombasa, Kenya on November 17th -19th, 2021. This prestigious IT leadership event is also expected to host more than 1000 CIOs and IT executives from all over the world and specifically East Africa.
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