The Da Vinci Institute’s 2018 tt100 Business Innovation Awards took place on Wednesday, 14 November at the Johannesburg Country Club. Under the theme, “Celebrating Leadership”, this year, 64 percent of the semi-finalists were emerging enterprises.
Speaking about the awards, Prof. Bennie Anderson: Director tt100 said, “The tt100 creates an awareness of the importance of having a conceptual framework around developing business such as how matters related to technology management, managing innovation, managing people and things systemically if drawn together can allow you to be a more agile, more aligned and more engaged.”
The tt100 programme provides enormous benefits to winners and finalists. The participants receive intensive, customised feedback on how they manage technology, innovation, people and systems, enabling them to boost innovation outputs in a way that positively impacts on socio-economic development and the bottom line.
“Tonight is about celebration, it is celebrating the leadership of people in the emerging, small and large enterprises. What enterprises can take away is role models who made things work with regard to Technology, Innovation, People and Systems and that they should tap into that pool and try to build networks”, said Prof Anderson.
The programme seeks to identify role models within the management of innovation and technology domains who have demonstrated their excellence in co-creating new workplace realities.
“The adjudication process sets the tt100 apart from all other business awards, said Prof Anderson. This involves interviews, there is also a report that goes back to every participant advising them on how they compare with their peers and what they could consider to do in order to improve moving forward.”
“This year we elaborated on engagement on the innovative concepts and tried to create awareness. We also did a lot of awareness campaigns to get emerging enterprises involved,” he added.
Minister of Science and Technology, Mrs Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane who delivered the keynote address said that in order for innovation to occur, there needs to be a healthy and productive interaction between technology and people.
“Government and the private sector need to work together to encourage innovation. The Department of Science and technology in South Africa is in the process of developing a white paper that will guide the national system of innovation for a foreseeable number of years,” said the Minister.
Technology is advancing rapidly and these changes will be disruptive to societies. “In order for societies to make this transition, it will require leadership in government and industry to guide technology and people. Government and industry need to work together to develop the neccessary skills which will enable our society to adjust to the technol0gy changes,” stated Kubayi-Ngubane.
There were 192 companies who entered the tt100 in 2018 and that resulted in 1152 categories. In total the tt100 comprised of 103 categories, finalists were selected from a rigorous face-to-face adjudication process and from this 27 categories were finally selected. Da Vinci received entries from KwaZulu Natal, Gauteng, Cape Town as well as Zimbabwe.
The Winners of the tt100 Business Innovation Awards:
The winners for Excellence in Sustainability are:
Emerging category – SVA Innovate
Small category – Air Blow Fans Medium category – Accsys (Pty) Ltd
Large category – Altech Netstar
The winners with the best Innovation concepts are:
Emerging category – MobeeWash
Small category – Access Control As A Service (ACaas)
Large category – InsurTech Platform
The winners for Overall Excellence are:
Emerging category – SVA Innovate
Small category – Air Blow Fans Medium category is Accsys (Pty) Ltd
Large category is Altech Netstar
The winners for Overall Excellence are:
Emerging category – SVA Innovate
Small category – Air Blow Fans
Medium category is Accsys (Pty) Ltd
Large category is Altech Netsta
The winners in the Management of Systems are:
Emerging category – AvantCore (Pty) Ltd
Small category – Air Blow Fans
Medium category – Accsys (Pty) Ltd
Large category – De Beers Group Services
The winners in the Management of People are:
Emerging category – Passion4Performance International
Small category – Air Blow Fans
Medium category – Accsys (Pty) Ltd
Large category – Altech Netstar
The winners in the Management of Innovation are:
Emerging category – Roman Handt
Small category – Cura Risk Management Software (Pty Ltd)
Medium category- Accsys (Pty) Ltd
Large category – SVA Holdings
The winners in the Management of Technology are:
Emerging category – @FetchThem
Small category – Air Blow Fans
Medium category – Accsys (Pty) Ltd
Large category – Altech Netstar
By Fundisiwe Maseko
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