Teradata, the analytic data platforms, marketing applications and services company, announced winners of the 12th Teradata National IT Excellence Awards. Shahid Khaqan Abbasi Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources was the chief guest and Dr Syed Ismail Shah, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) presented the winner's trophies at a grand event on May 18 at a local hotel.
Abbasi recognised Teradata's efforts in promotion of information technology and related professionals in Pakistan through annual recognition and awards program ever since its launch in 1997. Dr Shah acknowledged the efforts of Teradata and also congratulated the winners for achieving excellence in their respective fields.
"It is my honour to welcome the winners of the Teradata National IT Excellence Awards to the ranks of high achievers as adjudged by the panel. We are pleased to recognise their talent and achievements and to be part of their journey to further excellence," said Khuram Rahat, Teradata managing director for Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The winners of the 12th Teradata National IT Excellence Awards in the 10 categories are:
Excellence in IT Business Intelligence. This award is given to an individual who has demonstrated skills in integrating a successful Business Intelligence plan within an organisation and thereby increased business performance and productivity. He has also released software for the digital study of Al-Qur'an. Excellence in Software Development: Recognising individuals who have demonstrated exceptional skills in developing software, which is or can be deployed both locally and internationally, the winner in this category is Sham Zia, for his project, "Track Forever," an enterprise-grade vehicle-tracking and fleet management software solution.
Excellence in Software Export: This organisational award is given to M/S NetSol Technologies Limited, for its unique efforts resulting in achieving the highest software exports since 2004. The company realised a 22 per cent growth in software exports in 2013 compared to 2012. Excellence in IT Research and Development: Won by Osman Hassan for his role in developing new ideas, technology, techniques and/or products through research and development, Hassan developed the first training robot and simulator for Minimal Invasive surgery in Pakistan.
Excellence in IT Education: This award is given to recognise a person who nurtures the IT talent in Pakistan. Winner of this category this year was Dr Sajjad A Madani who has co-prepared and presented the concept paper to establish a virtual campus for distance learning at COMSATS institute of Information Technology.
Excellence in Project Management: Given to an individual with proven qualitative and quantitative results in successful execution of projects during the period of consideration, this award was given to Naeem Siraj. He demonstrated qualitative and quantitative results with the successful implementation of Retail Management System at 400 point-of-sale systems.
Excellence as an IT Student: This award was earned by Suleman Belal Kazi. A student at National University for Science and Technology, he has been on the Dean's honour roll for all six semesters. Kazi placed first in the IET's "Present around the World" Competition and was the team leader of the team that won the "Best Engineering Design" award.
Excellence in IT Enabled Service Offering: This award recognises innovation in solutions offering having a direct impact towards the consumers in Pakistan, be it creating convenience or related to raising the bar in the service industry with respect to the technology solution. This year it was given to three individuals involved in two projects. Ahmad Saeed and Dr Bilal Zaka were awarded for their IT-enabled service through PakWheels, the community-based automobile website.
Bilal Zaka won for earning his PhD in Computer Science and graduating with distinction from Graz University of Technology in Austria, and for consulting to Higher Education Commission for running learning-management-systems in 15 universities. CIO of the Year: This category recognises individual leadership and thought innovation in technology applications within an organisation.
Dr Sarfraz Alam was given this award in appreciation of his high contributions as Chief Information Officer for TEXPO Pakistan (Private) Limited. Under his dynamic leadership, more than 100 engineers, and the first satellite tracking ground stations for United Arab Emirates have been developed.
Lifetime Achievement Award: In recognition for having spent his entire career in promoting IT in Pakistan, this award was given to Shahid Mahmud. He is a Member of Corporate Advisory Council (CAC), the National University of Science and Technology for IT and Telecom, and a member of the NUST Alumni Advisory Council. Mahmud is the founder of PAKTEL, the first cellular company of Pakistan, where he remained a Director on the company's board till 1998. In 2001, he was selected to take part in the prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship program on leadership, in the United States of America.
Nominations in the 10 categories were received by independent auditors KPMG Taseer Hadi and Co. Seven judges evaluated the nominations on the basis supporting documents. The compiled results were later announced by the auditors. Judges for the 12th Teradata National IT Excellence Awards were: Dr Abdul Wahab, President Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Professor Dr Ziauddin Zia, Head of Computer Science Department, COMSATS Vihari, Dr Arshad Ali DG NUST SEECS Islamabad, Brigadier Saleem Ahmed Moeen (Retd), CEO, SecureTech Consultancy Pvt Ltd, Nooruddin Baqai, Advisor PTCL, Ms Jehan Ara, President P@SHA Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT and ITeS, and Salman Ansari, CEO, Salman Ansari Technologies.
Source: http://www.brecorder.com/it-a-computers/206/1184373/
