At
a glittering gala event held overlooking the picturesque Table Bay, Cape Town,
the ICT, Telecommunications and Media industries came together to celebrate and
acknowledge some of the industry’s best achievements that have taken place
across the African continent over the past 12 months
Best Network Improvement
Huawei Technologies
Huawei FMC Solution – Huawei’s partnership with Telkom which saw a fixed line and mobile switch solution to bring Telkom up to speed in South Africa allowing it to offer fixed voice and broadband services to its customers.
Best Quality User Experience
Ericsson
Ericsson Multiscreen Self-care – This enables communication service providers to put the user in full control of their multi-screen experience and empowers the user to take charge of and maximize their user experience. The portal makes it quick and simple for subscribers to make purchases and monitor spending. It enables them to buy credit, access new services and watch spending.
Best Cost Efficiency Solution for Africa
Liquid Telecom
Liquid Telecom – the longest fibre links in Africa Connecting the continent and ensuring that millions of people now have access to communication that is also affordable as Liquid Telecom have also worked hard to keep costs down.
Rural Telecoms Award
Safaricom limited
VUMA online – Affording off-grid customers the ability to have lighting and charging for their mobile phones while paying through the easy mobile payment system of M-PESA.
Best Connectivity Solution for Africa
Seacom
Remote Peering – Enabling pan-African connectivity for small to medium operators whose growth to date has been constrained by capital expenditure and lack of infrastructure
Best Marketing Campaign
Orange
Orange African Cup of Nations 2013 – Using the continent’s love of the game to reach more people and in the process build a strong association to this sport helping to entrench the brand.
Best Mobile Marketing Campaign
Mobitainment
The Excella’nt Competition – Using a mobile competition to generate a permission based consumer database for Wilmar Continental Oil to talk to on an ongoing basis, increase sales and build an image of excellence.
Best Digital Music Initiative
Spice VAS Africa Pte Ltd
MOD360 – An on demand music service with a customized music solution which offers music through multiple storefronts – bearer agnostic. Since the launch of this product with various Telecom Operators in sub-Saharan African, the subscriber base using this service has grown exponentially and today there are more than 3 million active users.
Best Mobile Money Service
Mahindra Comviva
Ecocash – Since the launch of this product with various Telecom Operators in sub-Saharan African, the subscriber base using this service has grown exponentially and today there are more than 3 million active users
Best App for Africa
Prezence Bid or Buy
BidorBuy – is South Africa’s largest online marketplace. The idea of the app was to create an interactive and convenient mobile shopping experience for mobile users which includes all the great features of the website, bringing buyers and sellers together to trade almost anything through online auctions and fixed price sales.
Most Innovative Service
MTN Swaziland
MTN XtraTime – A collaboration between MTN Swaziland and its implementation partners, Mobile Decisioning Holdings. It is a service that enables pre-qualified customers to request airtime in advance without using physical recharge cards or Uyibizemoyeni (virtual top-up) to top up their airtime balance.
Best Pan African Initiative
Seacom
SEACOM’s IP Network - African operators have traditionally connected to Europe and the US for their internet connectivity at the detriment of direct Africa-to-Africa communications. The SEACOM IP network provides customers with the best of both worlds so that neither user experience- that of accessing off-continent content or of accessing local content – has to be sacrificed in favour of the other.
The SEACOM IP network covers major centres across Eastern and Southern Africa with IP points of presence in South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya as well as extensions across borders and into landlocked central African countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
Industry Personality of the Year
WIOCC
Chris Wood – Chris Wood has led WIOCC since start-up, building it into a profitable, award-winning business with a unique, pan-African network, international client base and the #1 supplier of diversity-rich, high-capacity, end-to end managed circuits into and out of Africa. WIOCC has experienced continuous growth in a competitive market with a number of Tier-1 national telecoms operators, global carriers and international ISPs having signed up with WIOCC during 2013.
Changing Lives Award
Open Idea
Medigraf – Medigraf is a web platform for remote medical assistance and training that makes available general or specialized medical services to any part of the globe. Health professionals and practitioners can perform remote medical acts or medical training on any medical specialty from any location to any location in the globe, with mobility, flexibility and at low operating costs, remotely covering areas previously without general or specialized medical services.
