The CIO100 Awards are now eyeing the entire African continent and is targeting more than 500 entries for the upcoming Tech Excellence Awards scheduled for November.

Previously CIO100 Awards covered East Africa but now the tech excellence awards have extended to also cover West Africa, North Africa, and South Africa.

CIO100 Africa Awards Chairman Harry Hare says the expanded scope will allow for a wider spectrum review of more companies consuming and producing tech in various verticals.

The awards will cover 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 said.

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He noted 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,” he added.

To be among the top 100, firms 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,” he noted.

In 2020, Jaine Mwai, CIO at Standard Chartered Bank, Kenya bagged the CIO of the Year Award to become the first woman ever to win the award in the 12-year history of the East African CIO 100 Symposium and Awards.

Some of the interesting projects handled complex situations including telemedicine, the use of chatbots and AI, as well as the digitization of customer service experience.

Similarly, BIDCO bagged the Overall Winner award in 2020 by beating a crowded field of more than 300 contenders.

The regional CIO100 Africa Awards, an offshoot of the global CIO100 Awards that have been marked for 20 years, celebrate top firms from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania for their innovative use of IT.

“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,” said Andrew Karanja, CIO100 Awards Africa Marketing Director.

The top CIO100 companies will be announced at the annual CIO100 Awards Africa Symposium and Awards to be held in Mombasa on November 17 -19.

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.

2020 Winners were:

• Banking Sector Award: Standard Chartered Bank, Kenya

• Public Sector Award: Ministry of Public Service, Uganda

• Manufacturing Sector Award: KETEPA

• Transport and Logistics Award: Azampay Tanzania Ltd.

• Infrastructure Award: Kenya Electricity Generating Company PLC (KenGen)

• Green Edge Award: British American Tobacco Kenya PLC (BAT)

• Special Recognition Award/Business Transformation Award: ABSA Bank Kenya PLC

• Special Recognition Award/ HerNovation: Faith Muricho, Senior Technical Support Specialist, ABSA Bank, Kenya.

• Overall Company of the Year Award: Bidco Africa Ltd.