London, 17 October 2017 – The AfricaCom Awards celebrate the achievements of the best companies, solutions, products and personalities improving connectivity and driving Africa through the fourth industrial revolution. The 2017 event marks the 20th anniversary of AfricaCom and the 10th year of the Awards, which have consistently grown in significance over the years. Today, KNect365, announced the top twenty finalists.
“The inclusion of several new categories in this year’s awards line-up, also speaks to the continual progress being affected on the African continent through the deployment of digital solutions, generating some truly innovative thinking and services,” says Tom Cuthell, Portfolio Director for KNect365, organizer of AfricaCom. “It’s an exciting time for technology across the world, but none more than across Africa, with many of these shortlisted contenders, leading global development in their field.”
The categories and shortlisted finalists are:
Best Network Improvement
Vodafone Wholesale, Ghana – Fibre connectivity to the West African sub region
Mauritius Telecom – Accelerated FTTH Deployment
Liquid Telecom – Pan-African VSAT Service
MTN Nigeria – The world’s 1st CloudAIR GU@5MHz launched in MTN Nigeria
Huawei Technologies – Build the Best Network in Africa – Kenya P3 Score Improvement
Ericsson & Safaricom – Next Generation NOC
Delivering Excellence in Customer Experience
CommProve – QuantiQa NG
Mahindra Comviva and Airtel Africa – iPACS – Unified CRM and Convergent Billing Solution
Mahindra Comviva and Orange Cameroon – VAS Retailing Solution
Liquid Telecom – Listen, Measure, Understand and Improve
Orange – Business Care
MTN & Huawei Technologies – Customer Experience Management (CEM)
Best Network Function Virtualization Solution
Parallel Wireless – HetHet Gateway enabling ease of deployment and maintenance for ANY G cellular network
ECI – LightSEC for Critical Infrastructures
Ericsson – Ericsson HDS (Hyperscale Datacenter System)
Huawei Technologies – ICT Transformation Through Huawei’s NFV Solution
Changing Lives Award
WTL – Building wholesale networks in Rural Africa
Orange – Sandji-Senekalé
Orange – Cycle M
BrightWave Technologies – Telecommunication (metro broadband network)
UNHCR – Smart WiFi Kiosk
COCA COLA/EKOCENTER – EKOCENTER
RippleNami, Inc. – rWAVES
Most Innovative LTE Service/Application Deployment
Ecocarrier Inc. – MRESENCE – Presence in Mixed Reality and its application in cloud-based managed services for TeleMRedicine, CollaboMRation,
Alepo Technologies – BSS Transformation
Parallel Wireless – Making LTE deployments as easy and as cost-effective as Wi-Fi
Telkom & Huawei Technologies – Telkom (CSB) Consumer and Small Business powered by Huawei LTE Solution
Best Innovation in Broadcast – Broadband Convergence
Orange – #Débloqués
Orange – TV Everywhere
Telkom & Huawei Technologies – Telkom LIT_ Service
Most Innovative Service – The Business of Tomorrow
UROS Ltd. – Goodspeed Roaming App
ZOL (Zimbabwe) – part of The Liquid Telecom Group – Fibroniks-on-the-Go
Truecaller – Truecaller
Orange – Rural Electrification
Telkom & Huawei Technologies – Telkom LIT_
Orange – USSD STORE
Outstanding Data Management or Analytics Solution
BWTECH International Ltd – NetChart
Polystar – Kalix
Orange – Orange Data Management Program
PCCW Global – GlobalView
Fintech Innovation Award
Mahindra Comviva and Econet Wireless – EcoCash Diaspora
BIMA (Milvik) – Microinsurance
FAMOCO – FAMOCO help Orange Cameroon to improve the efficiency of their distribution network.
Panamax Inc. – MobiFin
Tanzania Vodacom & Huawei Technologies – Tanzania Vodacom Lipa kwa M-Pesa
PCCW Global – Tap&Go
IoT Product/Service of the Year
eWaterpay – eWater tap
Orange – Smart metering
SqwidNet – IoT Network and Ecosystem Roll-out
Huawei Technologies – Huawei PLC-IoT for achieving Intelligent Utility Grid
Huawei Technologies – Huawei IOT Solution for Insurance Innovation
MTN South Africa together with Ericsson MEA – First CAT-M1 test in Africa for Internet of Things
CXO of the Year
This is a new award and is open to members of the public to vote. It recognises outstanding contribution in the field of telecoms & ICT within an African listed company or an organisation with operations in at least one African country. The shortlisted nominees will be announced on Monday 23rd October 2017.
All winners will be announced at the AfricaCom Awards, which this year takes place on 8th November 2017, at the Waterfront LookOut, Granger Bay, Cape Town.
The 2017 AfricaCom Awards are sponsored by PCCW Global (a founding sponsor), Intelsat and Orange.
