Region’s tech leaders celebrated at ICT Achievement Awards

The Middle East’s technology leaders were celebrated last night at a glittering ceremony, the CNME ICT Achievement Awards, held at the Emirates Towers Godolphin Ballroom.

The event, now a main fixture on the region’s technology calendar, was in its fourth edition, and as usual, it celebrated the best and the brightest deployments of technology over the past year. Winners for the evening were picked by an expert panel of judges.

The ceremony started out with the vendor awards, which saw firms such as SAP, EMC and Fortinet take to the stage for a slice of glory. Meanwhille, Brocade saw success as the hardware vendor of the year, and Injazat Data Systems picked up the managed services provider of the year award. Alrowad IT Solutions were given the award for systems integrator of the year.

After a short break, the ceremony continued on to cover what everyone had really been waiting for – the end-user awards. The aim of the awards is to celebrate the regional CIOs and IT teams that have pushed the boundaries of technological innovation, creating real impact on their businesses’ bottom lines, and greatly improving customer experience.

Such organisations as Abu Dhabi Municipality (government deployment of the year), Jumeirah Group (hospitality and tourism project of the year) and Zulekha Hospital (healthcare deployment of the year) picked up awards throughout the night. Other winners included Aldar Properties (construction and real estate deployment of the year), the Education Administration at Abu Dhabi Police (education deployment of the year), and Emirates Islamic Bank, which picked up the BFSI deployment of the year award.

As the winners were called out, they were greeted with rapturous applause. And rightly so – the deployments this year showed wonderful uses of technology in business. And after a long first day at GITEX, it was only right that everyone let their hair down a little to congratulate themselves.

LIST OF WINNERS:

Hardware vendor of the year: Brocade

Software vendor of the year: SAP

Security solutions provider of the year: Fortinet

Storage solutions provider of the year: EMC

Managed services provider of the year: Injazat Data Systems

Systems integrator of the year: ALROWAD IT Solutions

Government deployment of the year: Abu Dhabi Municipality

Hospitality and tourism project of the year: Jumeirah Group

Healthcare deployment of the year: Zulekha Hospital

Construction and real estate deployment of the year: Aldar Properties

Education deployment of the year: Education Administration, Abu Dhabi Police

BFSI deployment of the year: Emirates Islamic Bank

Energy sector deployment of the year: ENOC

Telecommunications deployment of the year: VIVA Kuwait

Retail deployment of the year: KOJ Group

CIO of the Year: Anwar Abdulla Almulla

Future CIO of the Year: Zubair Ahmed

IT team of the year: Aluminium Bahrain

Editor’s choice – Enterprise architecture: DP World

Editor’s choice – Cloud computing: EFS Facilities Services

Editor’s choice – Mobility: Emirates Group

Editor’s choice – Big Data: Gulf Air