Start counting down for top tech awards

At this time of year, everybody involved in the Middle East’s IT industry starts gearing up for the biggest event in the regional calendar. There are now just two months to go before the main event kicks off. As with last year’s event, it will happen on the second night of Gitex.

We're referring of course to the IT Weekly Arab Technology Awards, which make their second — and now annual — appearance at this year’s Gitex show. Last year’s event honoured some of the best names in the IT industry, from international firms such as Microsoft, Cisco, Intel and IBM to some of the rest very best regional initiatives.

Firms honoured here included National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Emirates Airline, Zamil Industrial Investment Company, Dubai Women’s College and PWC Logistics.

There were also individual awards with luminaries such as Salem Al-Shair, eServices director for Dubai eGovernment, awarded for his outstanding contribution to e-government, and Ahmed Abdulkarim, general manager of eCompany awarded for outstanding contribution to internet adoption in the region.

This year we will once again be rewarding outstanding individuals and companies, but there is going to be a difference: you, our IT Weekly readers will get your chance to be the judges of the region’s ICT industry.

To make the IT Weekly Arab Technology Awards even bigger and better, IT Weekly wants its readers to help us to select the award winners: you will get your chance to vote on the best hardware, software, infrastructure and services firms in the region.

As the most widely read weekly business-to-business technology publication in the Middle East, IT Weekly’s readers are perfectly placed to nominate and judge the year's most prestigious information technology awards.

The Awards are designed to recognise and reward the people, products and companies that have contributed to the region’s ICT development.

The gala event, held on the second night of Gitex at the Habtoor Grand, Dubai, will play host to over 500 of the region’s leading information technology and communications professionals, systems integrators, analysts, politicians, statesmen, and several high profile special guests.

They will all be gathered to celebrate the awards that you, our readers, have voted on — making them truly the most representative awards in the region.

The voting will be a two-stage process, and the awards are open now for nomination — so what are you waiting for? Further details on the awards — and how to vote on them — can be found on the ITP Business website, under the address below.

Enter www.itp.net/events/arabtechnologyawards in your browser to find out more.