Nominations are now open for this year’s Institute of Information Technology Professionals (IITPSA) President’s Awards – the IT industry’s most prestigious annual awards. 

This year’s awards theme is: ‘IT Visionaries: Celebrating the ICT Industry’s Embrace of the Future’, recognising those ICT professionals who are driving ICT innovation and progress in South Africa. Nominations will close on 15 August and the winners will be named at an award ceremony in November.

IITPSA President Admire Gwanzura says that while the awards always recognise exceptional achievement in the ICT sector, this year they go further – recognising visionaries helping to shape the future of their organisations and communities.

“Our theme for this year’s President’s Awards recognises the rapid pace of change, and the fact that ICT professionals need to prepare their organisations for an uncertain future. They must be multi-skilled visionaries who are able to see the risks and opportunities lying ahead, and help their organisations navigate them. This demands technical expertise, strategic and leadership skills, and a deep commitment to professional ethics,” he says.

The IITPSA President’s Awards include the Visionary CIO and IT Personality of the Year awards – for decades, the industry’s most coveted titles awarded only to the most outstanding individuals in their fields.

The IT Personality Award recognises a highly respected and outstanding ICT professional who has made a significant technical or academic contribution to the industry, who has been successful in building a highly-respected IT organisation or business, and/or who has made a major contribution to the IT profession over a number of years.

The Visionary CIO Award, honours a CIO who has demonstrated visionary leadership in using IT to support, grow and transform business and/or who has established best practice in implementing technology solutions in an organisation.

The awards also include categories for Technology Excellence, Social Responsibility, and the newest Dynamism in ICT Youth Award.

The Technology Excellence Award is presented to a person or team who has made exceptional or innovative use of technology for an organisation and/or who has exhibited technological excellence that has delivered measurable benefit for business/the SA Economy.

The Social Responsibility/Community Award is presented to a person, team or project that delivers the benefits of IT on a not-for-profit basis into the community or brings the community into the IT space.

The Dynamism in ICT Youth Award recognises a person younger than 25 for exceptional potential or achievement in ICT. Nominees should be nominated by educators, employers, colleagues or mentors and may include students excelling in STEM studies with outstanding bodies of work; young entrepreneurs in the IT sector; and individual up-and-coming IT professionals.

To nominate deserving candidates for these awards, please visit https://www.iitpsa.org.za/annual-presidents-awards-criteria-nominations/