General23.11.2012

SA company in the running for international IT award

Local company sustainableIT has been nominated in two categories for the international Tech Trailblazers awards (techtrailblazers.com).

The Tech Trailblazers awards were designed specifically for tech start-ups and not only recognize innovation but also proactively helps companies to grow their businesses with exclusive coaching, mentoring and development services worth several hundred thousand rands. The awards are focused on the key enterprise IT sectors of cloud, infosecurity, mobile, networking, storage and virtualization. In addition, there is a sustainable IT category and an emerging markets category.

sustainableIT, a market leader in the field of green ICT and sustainable computing in South Africa, has been shortlisted in two categories, Sustainable IT and Emerging Markets. The company offers leading edge technology solutions and consulting services to organisations either embarking upon a carbon reduction strategy or wishing to run their IT departments more efficiently in terms of energy consumption and manpower.

The founding directors are both passionate about the environment, and chose to couple that passion with their extensive IT skills. “Over the past decade the IT industry started waking up to the fact that it was a large contributor of global emissions,” says director Tim James. “We recognised the market opportunity immediately and sustainableIT was born. Our value proposition is helping organisations measure, manage and reduce their emissions through the application of information technology.”

Stephen O’Donnell, chairman of the Tech Trailblazers judging panel, former CIO, author, and consultant said that the awards offers a forum for game-changing new technologies and young companies to showcase their products and services to the rest of the world. “We have assembled a world-class team of judges on the panel commensurate with the quality of entries we expect,” he said in a statement. “The prizes and publicity for winning entries will ensure an exciting contest.”

James commented that they are also excited about the prospects such an award could bring to South Africa. “If we were to win I think in the main it would provide recognition that South African startups have value to add on the global stage. There is a significant amount of innovation happening in South Africa, particularly in the Cape and we are really just humbled to have been shortlisted in the first place.”

Voting is open to the public and votes can be cast for sustainableIT at tinyurl.com/d8ezxow and on tinyurl.com/cym6az8.

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