Though the winners are yet to be announced, while we await the result(s), please read the profile of these respected and well-versed judges.
(1) LOY OKEZIE -is a digital media strategist and founder/editor of TechLoy.com, a leading African technology news and analysis site. He is also the co-founder of Sowambe, an emerging social media lifestyle brand. He has advised several Internet companies (both local and foreign) as well as entrepreneurs and helped start-up CareersNigeria.com in 2007. Loy was hired in 2009 to help start-up an information search portal for Nigeria similar to Yahoo! and AOL.
One of the Business Administration graduate’s biggest career moments was when some of the world’s biggest blogs VentureBeat and GigaOM, tried to break his servers by linking to this blog after he broke the news about the Encipher Inye, Nigeria’s first tablet PC. He has been featured and quoted many times in several local and foreign media sites, worked with management and recruitment consulting firms based in Nigeria, France and the UK.
He has consulted for several Internet companies and has trained individuals and corporate bodies on personal and organizational effectiveness in the past. Loy is a conference speaker and has spoken at a number of speaking engagements such as: The New York Forum Africa, Libreville, Gabon, June 8 – 10, 2012, Open Innovation Africa Summit – Nairobi, Kenya, May 28 – 30, 2012, Mobile Web West Africa 2012, Lagos, Nigeria, April 25 – 26, 2012, 9 Ideas Conference – Douala, Cameroon, to mention a few.
(2) MR .REMMY NWEKE-In Technology focused journalism in Africa, the name Remmy Nweke will always ring a bell. He is one Nigerian journalist that has won many international awards. For over a decade, Remmy worked and meritoriously stepped aside to grow his communication outfit, as the Senior Reporter and Head of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) desk at Champion Newspapers Limited Lagos, Nigeria.
He is now the Group Executive Editor of the award-winning blog, ITRealms Online and DigitalSense News .Remmy Nweke being a dedicated journalist has distinguished himself in Tech Journalism in Africa.
His combination of the old and the new media makes him standout among his professional colleagues. Remmy is one of the African journalists who continuously promote Internet Governance in Africa through Internet Governance Forum and its affiliates .
(3)TOLU OGUNLESI- The 30 year-old writer is the author of a collection of poetry, Listen to the geckos singing from a balcony (Bewrite Books, 2004) and a novella, Conquest & Conviviality (Hodder Murray, 2008).
In 2007 he was awarded a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg poetry prize, in 2008 the Nordic Africa Institute Guest Writer Fellowship, and in 2009 a Cadbury Visiting Fellowship by the University of Birmingham.
His fiction and poetry have been published in The London Magazine, Wasafiri, Farafina, PEN Anthology of New Nigerian Writing, Litro, Brand, Orbis, Nano2ales, Stimulus Respond, Sable, Magma, Stanford’s Black Arts Quarterly and World Literature Today, among others. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
Some of the Fellowships he’s attended and awards he’s garnered include; Finalist, Inaugural PEN/Studzinski Literary Award (winners to be announced in May 2009), 2009 Cadbury Visiting Fellow, Center for West African Studies, University of Birmingham (April – May 2009), 2008 Guest Writer, Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden (September – November 2008), Winner, Guardian (UK) / Ziji Publishing short story Competition (2007), Winner, 1st Facebook Poetry Competition, 2007, Winner, 2006 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize and many more.
(4) NTOMBEZINHLE MODISELLE- She is Intel Corporation South and Sub Saharan Africa’s marketing manager. She is feeling perfectly at home occupying the fast lane of the world’s busiest industries – technology and marketing.
Ntombezinhle is thrilled to shape the direction of the computing technology giant in line with what its consumers want and need, especially within Africa her home continent being fully aware of the African challenges and how much technology can shape and grow the economies of the continent.
Her expansive experience in the world of mobile and personal computing technology equips her well for the challenging environment in which Intel finds itself in to not only keep up but also dictate the way consumers in South Africa and the rest of Africa interact with their technology today.
Prior to her tenure at Intel SA as public relations manager, she honed her skills at Neotel, Nokia Siemens Networks and Siemens at which time she was responsible for brand and PR management. She feels social media has exploded and is creating tremendous opportunity for companies to initiate and foster two-way interaction with consumers.
