dx5 Releases First Shortlist For The Digital Transformation Awards

In its drive to steer digital transformation, dx5 (Formerly CIO Africa) has released a shortlist of companies that will compete in the Digital Transformation (dx100) Symposium & Awards which is slated for the 23^rd to 25^th of this year.

Now in its 14th year, the Digital Transformation (dx100) Symposium & Awards celebrates 100 organizations (and the people within them) that are using information technology in innovative ways to deliver business value.

The shortlisted companies have been drawn from a pool of over 350 firms that had earlier submitted their applications to be recognized in the Awards. The list will be further trimmed down to a hundred who will be awarded as the top 100 companies in Africa that have embraced digital transformation in their projects.

The companies will go through a rigorous adjudication process where a panel of judges will select the top 100 of the lot in different categories.

The shortlisted companies are drawn from different countries across the continent including Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Mauritius, Rwanda, Nigeria, Zambia, and Egypt.

This edition of the Awards features winners from different categories including Healthcare, Government/ Public Sector, Education, Insurance, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Media, Transport, Banking, and SACCOs. New categories introduced this year include Retail, Telecommunications, Agriculture, and Non-profit.

The finalist companies that will be participating in the Digital Transformation Awards include:

• The Banking sector: Equity Bank, ABSA Kenya, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), Gulf African Bank, and Sidian Bank.
• The healthcare sector: M.P. Shah Hospital, Gertrudes Children Hospital, and Dawa Lifesciences.
• The manufacturing sector: Car and General, Mabati Rolling Mills, British American Tobacco (BAT), Unga Holdings Group, and Isuzu East Africa.
• The public sector: Kenya Airports Authority, Kenya Electricity Transmission Company Ltd (KETRACO), Energy, & Petroleum Regulation Authority (EPRA)
• The insurance sector: Jubilee Insurance, Motisure, Kenya Reinsurance Corporation, and Takaful Insurance

This edition of the awards has attracted companies outside Kenya showing how digital transformation has grown in the continent. The shortlisted companies that are outside Kenya include:

• 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)
• Billionaire Fund (Uganda)

dx5 Chairman Harry Hare commenting on the shortlisted companies said: “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.”

The Digital Transformation (dx100) Symposium & Awards event will be hosted at Leisure Lodge, Diani, Mombasa.

Some of the anticipated speakers include tech luminaries such as Jack Ngare, Technical Director Office of the CTO, Google, Ali Hussein, Chairman of the Association of Fintechs in Kenya, (AFIK), and CIO of the Year 2018 winner, George Njuguna.