Vodacom sponsor 2011 SmartXchange SMME Awards Evening

Vodacom have joined Dimension Data and Adapt IT as one of the major sponsors of this year's 6^th annual SmartXchange SMME Awards Evening, which is to be held on Wednesday 14 December 2011 at Durban's Botanic Gardens Visitors' Complex. The gala event showcases local the many successful ICT small businesses currently on the SmartXchange incubator programme.  

The evening will celebrate achievements such as: Avnon Consulting being selected as one of the 2011 World Bank's top 50 SMMES out of more than 22 000 entries; Astel Business Consulting winning the coveted CSSA (Computer Society of South Africa ) KZN Best ICT Company 2011 Award and also being contracted to Cisco as their telecoms billing partner for Cisco's Cloud solutions for Emerging Markets; Homegrown Solutions winning the Microsoft Entrepreneurial Competition to fast track their Smart Metering Programme into Africa; and Durban Motion Picture, who have been commissioned by Mnet to produce three films, to name but a few.

Ethekwini Municipality's Deputy Mayor Councillor Nomvuso Shabalala will be the guest of honour, and will present the diverse range of awards. These will include ‘Best ICT company of the year', ‘Best new comer of the year', the ‘Leadership Award', and the ‘Most supportive corporate company'. Companies and businesses in attendance will be exclusively from the ICT sector, and their focus will comprise website and graphic design software development, IT infrastructure, digital content, telecoms, as well as mobile and cloud solutions.

SmartXchange, a not-for-profit Information and Communications Technologies cluster, is based in Durban and was established to promote and support the region's vision to be the technology hub of Africa.

Robynne Erwin, SmartXchange CEO, said that "SmartXchange is an example of how collaboration between stakeholders such as Government departments and agencies, and corporate, private and businesses tertiary institutions can build and achieve economic development agendas. Research shows that incubators produce a very good return on investment compared to many traditional economic development tools.  Incubators and their graduating businesses create jobs, commercialize technology and encourage entrepreneurial development. We are highly appreciative of our funders and partners and applaud their spirit of collaboration and cooperation in building the ICT sector and BEE SMME base.

Vodacom KZN's Managing Executive Alberts Breed said that "by showing our support for the SmartXchange SMME Awards Evening, Vodacom hopes to further contribute to developing a thriving and dynamic information and communications technology sector. We would like to congratulate the winners of the various prizes for their achievements, as their contributions have made much progress towards promoting South Africa as the continents pre-eminent technology hub".