The Computer Society of SA (CSSA) President's Awards, hosted at the Hilton Hotel in Sandton this morning, saw members from across South Africa's ICT industry gather to pay homage to colleagues and peers who have made a marked difference to the sector over the past year.
The event is held annually to honour individuals who have made an impact on the local ICT industry.
Sandi Macfie, CIO of Southern Sun Hotels, walked away with the Visionary CIO of the Year award.
In an emotional acceptance speech, she said: “This is a great honour and a major highlight of my career, I feel very privileged to win this award.”
Macfie has worked in the IT industry for more than 30 years in various senior management, consulting and strategic account management roles, including hospitality, retail, banking, ICT and investment sectors.
She has been CIO at Southern Sun Hotels since 2000. Her portfolio has recently expanded beyond IT, to include management of the strategic planning business process and various strategic business projects.
As a firm believer in the power of IT to transform an organisation, Macfie quoted Mahatma Ghandi as saying: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
People-centricity
Asher Bohbot, CEO of EOH, was named IT Personality of the Year. His colleague, Mark Scheepbouwer, accepted the award on his behalf, praising Bohbot's astuteness and people-centricity.
“At EOH, you don't get grilled over losing a good deal, you get grilled over losing a good person,” he said.
Bohbot has highlighted EOH's commitment to capacity building by investing in the Maths Centre, a non-profit organisation, in all provinces with the primary objective of developing a higher competency rate in mathematics, science and technology by equipping learners, teachers and parents with sufficient learning materials and programmes.
The other awards went to Professor Rex van Olst from the University of Witwatersrand, who was bestowed with the Distinguished Service in ICT Award. Gail Sturgess, human capital architect at TalentAlign, walked away with the CSSA Fellowship Award for 2011. The 2011 IT Leading Employer Award was scooped by SQS SA, which beat competition from Discovery PruProtect and Xtensive ICT Academy.
XHead = Healthy start-up ecosystem
Yola founder, Vinny Lingham, gave the keynote address. As a co-founder of the Silicon Cape initiative - which aims to turn Cape Town into a global IT hub - Lingham's presentation focused around the development of a healthy start-up ecosystem in SA.
“SA needs to stop digging stuff out of the ground,” he said, explaining that natural resources will run out eventually, so people are a far better investment in the long-term.
He emphasised the need for a paradigm shift regarding failure. “Failure is the default for start-ups,” he said.
In Silicon Valley, he explained, there's a “culture of acceptable failure” whereby investors still invest in people whose initial ventures have come to nothing. This kind of culture drives innovation, he added.
Outlining the key trends he's noticing in Silicon Valley, Lingham emphasised a drive towards hyper-local - the virtual corner shop. The three trends he's seeing are social, mobile, and local. Start-ups can capitalise on all three if they are not afraid to use some ingenuity.
The most likely candidates for this ingenuity? The youth, he stressed.
He also stressed the need for a better investment ecosystem in SA. In order to drive this kind of innovation, start-ups need incubators, seed capital and angel investors, he said.
XHead = NGO benefits
This year's event raised R26 400 for the Papillion Foundation, a public benefit NGO working towards the economic and social development of previously disadvantaged communities. It offers among other training courses, the International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL).
The MC for the event was former Super Saturday host, Neil Andrews, who kept the crowd entertained with his quirky sense of humour.
Click here to read CSSA president Adrian Schofield's address on leadership.
Related story:
IT Personality, Visionary CIO winners named
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