Judges announced for BCX Digital Innovation Awards 2020

Alistair Mokoena, country director at Google South Africa

The BCX Digital Innovation Awards honours and celebrates South African organisations that are innovating and changing the course of their industries

“We are looking for the best innovators South Africa has to offer. All of our judges are well respected within the technology industry and each has extensive experience in the technology industry. Their experience instrumental in identifying the top innovators,” says Jonas Bogoshi, CEO of BCX. “This year’s BCX Digital Innovation Awards is not just a competition; it is a call to action for us to work together in building a better world.”

“South Africa is beset with challenges both at an economic and social level. The role of technology in addressing these challenges cannot be overemphasised”, says Alistair Mokoena, Country Director for Google South Africa.

“This is why the BCX Digital Innovation Awards is so important. We look forward to hailing those innovators that have managed to apply digital technology to solving our society’s problems and thereby unleashing it’s potential.”

Judges

The panel of judges include:

• Alistair Mokoena, country director at Google South Africa
  
• Jaco Gerrits, entrepreneur and founder of award-winning app, RoadSave
  
• Nadia Mather, director at Tabacks Attorneys
  
• Benji Meltzer, co-founder of Agri-tech company, Aerobotics

Organisations can enter one of two categories:

Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Digital Innovation Award

This category is for South African SMEs who have been in operation for more than 1 year and who are currently employing more than 5 people and earning less than R50 million in revenue. Part of the prize for the winner of this category is a potential partnership agreement with BCX.

Corporate Enterprise Digital Innovation Award

This category is for large South African enterprises with an existing employee base of 200 or more. Part of the prize for the winner of this category is the BCX Innovation program.

Now in its second year, the award is looking for digital innovations across all industry sectors – businesses which used technology to improve an existing process or product or have developed an entirely new process or product.

Jaco Gerrits, CEO of RoadSave believes that digital innovation can be used as a force for good. “I look forward to seeing a high level of creativity and importantly, how well innovations align to market needs. I’m curious to see how the ideation process differ between corporates and SME’s, how assumptions are tested, and feedback used to determine marketplace viability. I’d like to congratulate BCX on this initiative and wish the contestants the best of luck.”

"I am looking forward to being a judge at the BCX Digital Innovation Awards 2020. Having been on the other end for the last few years, building a technology business of our own, this is a great opportunity to see some of the top innovation in South Africa first-hand," says Benji Meltzer, co-founder and CTO of Aerobotics.

The winners of this year’s BCX Digital Innovation Awards will be announced at the Sunday Times Top 100 Companies Awards event in November.

To enter the 2020 Digital Innovation Awards, go to https://www.bcx.co.za/digitalinnovationawards/