GEC NEWS WIREThe World CIO 200 Summit 2021 successfully completed East Africa- Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda edition on 7th October 2021 at the GCF Virtual Arena. Carrying forward its legacy of the past five years, this year, the roadshow is going to cover 36+ countries and provide a platform for 200+ exhibitors with 300+ engaging sessions. Over 4,000 C-Level executives will be recognised in the 2021 edition.
The event partners of The World CIO 200 Summit were Infoblox, F5, Exclusive Networks, BMB, Laserfiche Veritas, Finesse and Arcon. The World CIO 200 Summit has four award categories including Legend CIO, Leader CIO, Master CIO, and Next-generation CIO:
- Legend CIO: Lifetime achievement awards.
- Master CIO: Experience of more than 15-20 years and unparalleled technological experience in a career life span.
- Legend CIO: Experience of 10-15 years and multiple domain expertise.
- Next-generation CIO: Experience of 5-10 years or less and undertaken mammoth projects in a less span of time.
The World CIO 200 Summit East Africa Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda edition was hosted by Anushree Dixit Global Head, Content and Strategic Alliances. Ronak Samantaray, CEO, GEC Media Group started the event with his welcome note.
During the event, there were four-speaker keynote speakers and one-panel discussion. The event was followed by World CIO 200 awards. The event was streamed live from the virtual arena and on Vimeo also.
Here are the highlights of the various speaker keynote presentations:
World CIO 200 Country IT Outlook
Bernard Roco, Head of ICT, Kenya Tea Packers discussed Africa IT Transformation Outlook and said, “Nothing prepared us for the pandemic looking in the past two years the entire global went through a hard reset. Who thought one day our airspaces could be shut because of the pandemic? The whole global supply chain systems faced extreme pressure. The Covid-19 pandemic has a brutal impact on each industry. No industry has been immune from the level of disruption that has come with Covid-19 pandemic.”
Transformation Outlook
Vincent Nuwamanya, Enterprise Account Manager, Veritas Keynote talked about their company’s transformation outlook and said, “We do ensure that we provide business opportunity to organisations, we generally provide key and ensure that we give then ambition critical business services always. We also ensure all their data is protected and they can recover for any eventualities from ransomware. He added that they also help customers to satisfy legal and regulatory requirement related to their data.”
Technology Outlook 2022
Khaled Ben Driss, CTO, Wevioo addressed a session Technology Outlook 2022 and said that the race to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic stimulated innovation and creativity across Africa, which road the continents potential towards acerating towards development. He added that he has participated in several IT projects to set up state of our digital platforms where local teams worked remotely on agile mode. In e-government field many projects were carried out in record time with the participation of multiple ministries.
Leadership in Post Pandemic: A cross-border view
Wissam AL Adany, Group CIO, GB Auto Group talked about Leadership in Post Pandemic: A cross-border view and said, “From my point of view, I see the coming period is even more important because during pandemic everything was unclear. Most of the decision taking by corporates, government took everything until having a clear vision. So many companies delayed investments until understanding the new work dynamics. Today most of the countries have started to recover from this period, it is very important to be ready that requires many changes in business dynamics, strategies and understand how to make proper transformation plan.”
Leadership in Post Pandemic: A cross-border view
Andy Malone, MVP, MCT said that the coronavirus has a major impact on the way of doing business and the way we work now. Andy Malone highlighted some of those changes and impacts in his speech and said, “Products like Zoom, Microsoft team exploded and working in the cloud becomes a new normal and for companies you have hybrid solutions.”
Leadership in Post Pandemic – A cross-border view
The panel discussion was moderated by Arun Shankar, Editor of GEC Media Group with panelists including Samuel Amanor, CEO, BlueSPACE, Africa, Khalid Jalal, Senior Group ICT Manager of GARMCO and Munir Ahmad, Executive Director and CIO United Company of Pakistan on leadership in post-pandemic – cross-border view.
Businesses led by their technology heads are revamping their infrastructure and application stack looking at vastly improved customer experience, higher returns from sales, business resilience and business continuity. Failed organisations and industries are experiencing consolidations, shakeouts, and exits for being laggards in technology adoption.
- In your opinion, based on your organisation’s experiences and the market sector that you operate in, which specific technologies and applications have helped your organisation build resilience, agility, and leadership in the last 18 months.
- As the head of technology decision making, responsible for pulling your organisation through the challenges of the last 18 months, tell us about your engagement with business and other peers, who worked closely to revamp operations and processes, and facilitate further digitisation and cloud migration.
- As we move into the recovery phase of the pandemic and further, many business opportunities are appearing ahead. In your opinion, what technology initiatives should organisations put in place to further build leadership and resilience in their markets and industries.
The announced winners of The World CIO 200 Summit – East Africa- Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda edition include:
| Full Name | Designation | Organisation |
| Ousman Mohammed | IT Director | Wollo University |
| Traci Chanyalew | IT Director of Operations | International Community School of Addis Ababa |
| Kehulum Belayneh | Associate Director of Information Technology | International Clinical Laboratories ICL |
| Mekdes Mintesnot | CIO | Ethio Telecom |
| Shimelis Legesse | Chief Information Officer | Dashen Bank |
| Yitbarek Tesfaye | Director – IT Security | Commercial Bank of Ethiopia |
| Mesfin Workneh | Head of the IT Department | Ministry of Finance and Economic Development |
| Kehulum Belayneh | Associate Director of Information Technology | International Clinical Laboratories ICL |
| Allan Zaramba | Founding Member, Director IT and Digital Strategy | Barefoot Law |
| Fantahun Demeke | Director-IT Security | Bank of Abyssinia S.C. |
| Tilahun Mulugeta | Head IT Infrastructure Design and Delivery | Ethiopian Airlines |
| Tedla Kebede | CIO/Project Director for Electronic Trading Platform Project | Ethiopia Commodity Exchange |
| Thomas Mwogi | Chief Information Officer | Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital |
| Bernard Rono | Head of ICT / CIO | Kenya Tea Packers Limited |
| Diptendu Ghosh | Group CIO | Doshi Group of Companies |
| Peter Njuguna | Chief Information Officer | Co-operative Bank of Kenya |
| Dennis Volemi | Group CIO | Equity Bank Limited |
| Bernard, Rono | Head of ICT | Kenya Tea Packers Limited |
| Bravine, Otieno | IT Manager/Country CIO | DB Schenker |
| Viren Bissoonauth | Chief Information Officer | Mauritius Telecom |
| Doreen Wong | Chief Information Officer | Compagnie Mauricienne De Textile |
| Abdool Kadell | Group Chief Information Officer | Sun Resorts. |
| Reza Motala | Information Technology Services Operations Manager | The Mauritius Commercial Bank |
| Navin Sumoreeah | Senior Manager – Information Technology Projects and Innovation | Maubank |
| Hari Ramsamy | Chief Information Officer | Lottotech |
| Veekash Aukhojee | Chief Information Officer – Telecom | Emtel |
| Hurree Nishan | Senior Manager Information Technology Security and Risk Management | Maubank |
| Jailand Myandee | Information Technology System Manager | The Mauritius Commercial Bank |
| Avinash Nunkomar | Cluster Information Technology Manager | Sun Resorts. |
| Moonesh Suggun | Information Technology Support Manager | Constance Hospitality Management |
| Victor Tovela | Information Technology Manager | Mcel |
| Eduardo Morais | Information Technology Systems Manager | Vodacom Mozambique |
| Eusébio Tauzene | Information Technology Deputy Manager | Millennium Bim |
| Jose Barbosa | Information Technology Manager | Millennium Bim |
| Emidio Chung | Information Technology Manager | Bci |
| Cleiton Wilson | Information Technology Security Manager | Vodacom Mozambique |
| Henriques Manjate | Information Technology Infrastructure Manager | Moza Banco |
| Faustino Pioris | Information Technology Governance and Enterprise Architecture Group Leader | Mcel |
| Bindu Mittal | Chief Information Officer at Mount Meru Rwanda | Mount Meru Group |
| Rohit Dhawan | Chief Information Officer | Bank of Kigali Limited |
| Mashaka Chaula | Chief Information Officer | Millicom, Tigo |
| Dakshit Pandya | Group Head Information Technology | Exim Bank Tanzania Limited |
| Dishon Eseka | Head Of Information Technology Department | ENGIE Mobisol |
| Carina Kabajunga | Head IT | Commonwealth Business Communications Ltd |
| Peter Madafa | Head of IT | Grumeti Reserves Ltd |
| John Msocha | Head IT Unit | World Food Programme |
| Sebastian Nkoha | Head of IT | Mwananchi Communications Limited |
| Victoria Mbowe | Head of IT: Systems and Service Delivery | Vodacom |
| Sebastien Stampfli | Chief Information Officer- Member of the Executive Board | SNSF Swiss National Science Foundation |
| Kafeero Ibrahim | Chief Information Officer | BSB Design |
| Tathy Muenkat | Chief Information Officer – CIO | Comtel Integrators Africa |
| Peter Kayondo | CIO | Government of Uganda |
Highlights of The World CIO 200 Summit:
- Grand Finale with 2 days of networking, collaboration, knowledge sharing and CAC.
- Tech Talk: The most novel way of making your presentations come alive.
- DX Inspire Awards: Global 20 Recognition for the most Transformative Projects and Solutions.
- What is new this year
The 2021 edition is ready to build roadmaps for strategic decision making and identify yardsticks that are the key drivers of growth in the digital world. While CIOs can pick on sessions to help them fast-track their growth, the solution providers can build their brand, present their solutions and network with 500+ relevant C-level IT decision-makers flown in from 14 countries.
The top CIOs from respective countries will arrive in the United Arab Emirates for the grand finale in an all-expense-paid trip, on 5-6th December 2021 at Topaz Ballroom, Fairmont Ajman. The event will also be part of the Dubai Expo 2020.
