Last week, we learned that the dx5, formerly known as CIO East Africa, will be holding the CIO Awards in Diani, Mombasa from November 23rd to 25th. The awards now are referred to as dx100 following the rebrand from CIO East Africa.
This is also one of the few times that the publisher has moved the Digital Transformation (dx100) Symposium & Awards show to coastal Kenya. Previous fairs were held in Naivasha or within the Nairobi metropolitan area. Now in its 14th year, the event’s main agenda has always been to celebrate 100 organizations that are using IT in an innovative manner to deliver business value.
This week, dx5 has revealed a shortlist of companies that will be taking part in the awards ceremony. The shortlisted organizations have been picked from a pool of over 350 firms that had applied to be recognized in the ceremony. The shortlisted companies will further be reduced to a team of 100.
The 100 organizations, which have been picked from different countries including Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Mauritius, Rwanda, Nigeria, Zambia, and Egypt, will then go through a thorough adjudication exercise in front of a panel of judges, who will then classify them into different categories.
Among the categories that will feature in the show includes Healthcare, Government/Public Sector, Education, Insurance, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Media, Transport, Banking, and SACCOs. This year, new categories have been introduced: Retail, Telecommunications, Agriculture, and Non-profit.
Finalists
| Banking | Equity Bank, ABSA Kenya, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), Gulf African Bank, and Sidian Bank |
| Healthcare | M.P. Shah Hospital, Gertrudes Children Hospital, and Dawa Lifesciences |
| Manufacturing | Car and General, Mabati Rolling Mills, British American Tobacco (BAT), Unga Holdings Group, and Isuzu East Africa |
| Public Sector | Kenya Airports Authority, Kenya Electricity Transmission Company Ltd (KETRACO), Energy, & Petroleum Regulation Authority (EPRA) |
| Insurance | Jubilee Insurance, Motisure, Kenya Reinsurance Corporation, and Takaful Insurance |
Shortlisted companies from other parts of Africa include the following: Weber Wentzel (South Africa), Smart Africa (Rwanda), Infobip (Project for Zenith Bank) (Nigeria), Jelurida Africa (Nigeria), Thochima Enterprises Ltd (Zambia), Inq Digital (Mauritius), Platino Group (Egypt) and Billionaire Fund (Uganda).
Speakers
Some of the anticipated speakers include tech luminaries such as Jack Ngare who works at Google Cloud’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) as a Technical Director, Ali Hussein who is the Chairman of the Association of Fintechs in Kenya (AFIK), and CIO of the Year 2018 winner, George Njuguna.
“We have received applications from countries we never received from before and sectors we didn’t award in the past. This shows how technology continues to be adopted in the continent with countries like Mauritius, Zambia, and Uganda showing that they will not be left behind with the digital transformation bandwagon,” says dx5 Chairman Harry Hare.
