CIO100 Annual Awards Competition has been postponed to 15th to 17th May next year as a result of numerous stakeholders beyond East Africa's interest to attend against the limited time due. Produced by CIO East Africa, CIO100 Awards is an acknowledged mark of enterprise IT excellence. It's a celebration of 100 organizations (and the people within them) that are using information technology in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth or improving relationships with customers.

Speaking during the announcement, Ms Nicholle Myles, Business Development Director, CIO East Africa said that after the DEMO Africa event, a number of other Africa Countries have shown keen interest in CIO100.

"After seeing the success in DEMO Africa, numerous African countries have asked us for some more time for them to prepare in order to participate in the CIO100 Annual Awards competition as well," she said.

Ms Myles also notes "in line with making the event truly regional, the event will now be hosted in Kigali, Rwanda a hot ICT country right now. The Rwanda Development Board (RDB), a government agency charged with the development of ICT in the country has agreed toco-host this event with us."

This is will be the first time CIO100 will be hosted in a different country since its debut three years ago. "We have received a lot of requests to have the event rotate in the region, so RDB's interest and the business slowdown provided an opportunity to implement this," Myles continued.

"We are changing the format of the event this time round to have three very distinctive tracks, i.e. Government, Enterprise and SME's. This is in line with feedback we have received from our partners, readers and attendees to have a programme that inclusive and aware of the different verticals," Said Harry Hare, the Editorial Director, CIO East Africa.

We are extending the CIO100 awards registration to all the countries shown interest after DEMO Africa and wish to reiterate that come May 2013 the event will have the face of Africa, bigger and better for participating delegates, corporates, sponsors and as well end users to tap into new technologies that will be available on showcase and presentations during the conference & Awards.

The generation of new ideas can be critical to your business's success. Although every organisation will have its own priorities and sector-specific issues to balance, businesses that fail to innovate run the risk of losing ground to competitors, losing key staff, or simply operating inefficiently. Innovation can be a key differentiator between market leaders and their rivals. This is why CIO100 has taken the move to give all an opportunity by moving the event to May which augers well to many.