Bidvest CIO Nomonde White-Ndlovu and Cinga Nyangintsimbi, Founder and MD of Batsamayi Software Development, are among the 2024 winners of the prestigious Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa (IITPSA) President’s Awards, who were announced at an awards ceremony in Johannesburg.
This year’s awards were themed: ‘Celebrating leaders in ethical transformation’.
IITPSA President Pearl Pasi said this theme was particularly relevant, given the growing importance of the role of ICT professionals in the new, digital world. She said: “As ICT professionals, we are building and deploying solutions that run the world and impact the lives of every citizen, and we must do so ethically. We must be always aware of the impacts of our technology and ensure the digital world is accessible, unbiased and fair to everyone. The world we build should uplift – not exclude.”
Pasi said the finalists in the 2024 IITPSA President’s Awards are all shining examples of ethical, innovative ICT professionalism in action.
She also noted that this year was the first in the President’s Awards' 46-year history that women finalists outnumbered men in most categories, and overall.
Pasi said: “Women dominated in terms of nominations and finalists in the Visionary CIO and IT Personality categories. And in our Dynamism in ICT Youth category for people under the age of 25, all of the finalists are young women. We take this as an encouraging sign that more young women are entering the sector, and the gender gap is really closing in South African ICT.”
This year’s winners are:
IT Personality Award
Cinga Nyangintsimbi, Founder and MD of Batsamayi Software Development. Batsamayi was established as a third year project group during Nyangintsimbi's time as a student at the Nelson Mandela University in 2013, where he later became a Student Assistant and consequently started lecturing final year IT students. Under Nyangintsimbi's leadership, Batsamayi has experienced exponential growth, growing out of a dream by six young software engineers in 2015, to a 50-strong team and specialising in software engineering, quality assurance and cloud services for international clients.
Visionary CIO Award
Nomonde White-Ndlovu, CIO at Bidvest Bank. As a seasoned technology executive, White-Ndlovu has also served on the ABSA Group Technology Executive team, headed Governance, Risk and Compliance for ABSA Group’s Information Technology Office and has been the Joint Chief Information Officer for the organisation's Infrastructure Services. She is also a speaker and moderator, and Chairperson of Wired4Women. She holds an MBA from the Gordon Institute of Business Science and a BA Law degree (Wits).
Technology Excellence Award
Cornelius Greyling, Fibertime executive and technology leader. As a dynamic entrepreneur and technology leader, Greyling co-founded Avocado Chocolate in 2015 alongside Martin Stolk. The company developed mobile apps, games, websites, web services and reward platforms. In 2021, he launched VulaCoin, a micro-payments and business support services platform for pay-as-you-go fibre connectivity in South African townships. In 2022, he sold the platform to Fibertime, where he holds an executive-level position and oversees product development.
Social Responsibility/Community Award
Zoie Health. Zoie is a digital health platform for women's and family health and wellness, offering virtual consultations, a community chat forum, resources and a shop/pharmacy where members can purchase their health and wellness products and medication. Zoie Health also has a B2B WhatsApp-based employee benefits product for frontline employees called EasyDoc.
Dynamism in ICT Youth Award for people under 25
Matshepo Soto, CEO of MoveMates. Soto is a 24-year-old award-winning Software Engineer and the CEO of MoveMates, which offers instant quotes and on-demand moving services. With a background in software engineering from WeThinkCode, she has won first place in five prestigious hackathons. She was also listed in ITWeb's "100 Influential Women in Tech" and won the Rising Star in Coding award. She was also named among Geekulcha's top 15 geeks. Soto also founded the Thuma Mina Tech Foundation, an NPO that teaches autistic children about technology.
Member Ambassador Award
Constandious Takura Munakandafa, a member of the IITPSA Social and Ethics Committee. He previously served as Secretary, Treasurer and Vice-Chairperson of the Gauteng IITPSA Chapter and regularly writes IT articles published in the IITPSA newsletter. He is an Agile Systems Analyst at Glacier by Sanlam and holds a BSc Honours in Information Systems from the Midlands State University in Zimbabwe.
Jason Jordaan, a digital forensics, incident response and cyber crime investigation specialist, and founder and Principal Partner of DFIRLABS, was the recipient of the Distinguished Service in ICT Award, and Thabo Mashegoane, Past President and Non-Executive Director of the IITPSA, former Chair of AfICTA Chief Advisor IT Architect at Eskom, was honoured with the IITPSA Fellowship of the Institute Award 2024.
The IITPSA President’s Awards 2024 were presented by the IITPSA in association with ITWeb and the Gordon Institute of Business Science and sponsored by SoftwareOne Experts SA. The Distinguished Service in ICT Award is presented in association with EngineerIT.
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