East Africa celebrates the CIO100 award winners

East Africa’s CIO 100 regional winners from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda — vetted from an average of 550 registrants, were last Friday celebrated at a colourful ceremony, which took place at Enashipai Resort, Naivasha, Kenya.

The organisations representing exemplary working, scalable solutions, that harness technology to include more people in the digital economy and broaden opportunity of their corporate entities, were lauded for their creative and sustainable initiatives by a panel of judges from East Africa.

Reckoned as East Africa’s most powerful executive-level IT media brand providing insight into business technology leadership, the magnanimous launch that was the climax of the 2018 CIO 100 Symposium & Awards celebrated 100 organisations and their IT teams for driving business value and growth through digital transformation.

In a colourful ceremony spiced with a tinge of African soundtracks the industry players also proudly celebrated outstanding organisations and George Njuguna, CIO HF Group, was declared the East Africa’s 2018 CIO of the Year.

The CIO gala, attended by regional experts, prominent members of academia, leading entrepreneurs and business leaders, funders, and media was the culmination of a year-long search for organisations that are impacting the future enterprises and of work today.

“As the event organisers, we believe that inclusive innovation is an economic and moral imperative, and that the key question of our era isn’t what technology is going to do to our economy and society, but what we will do with technology,” Laura Chite, CIO Chief executive officer said.

Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of ICT Joseph Mucheru, said his Government is committed to support the development of ICT. “Kenya aims to be first country to offer 4G Internet services”, he said. He said technology and digital are in the hearts of everyone and that Kenya is part of the African Governments to sign up a single Digital market, by working closely with the private sector.

The Annual CIO 100 Awards celebrated 100 organizations (and the people within them) who are using information technology in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth or improving relationship with customers.

“The organisations we are honouring today represent the best technology users in our region. They all did something right, something that impressed our judges,” asserted Muchemi Wambugu, a lead judge at this year’s event.

The 2018 12 honourees, recognised for excellence include; Special awards CIO of the year, which went to George Njuguna of HF Group, Kenya Airways, as overall winner of 2018 CIO East Africa award and Green Edge award to Ol Pejeta Conservancy.