The winners of the iTECH Gulf 2014 Awards received their honours from Minister of State for Telecommunications Affairs Shaikh Fawaz bin Mohammed Al Khalifa during the opening of the event yesterday (April 9).

The iTECH 2014 Awards look to celebrate regional and international ICT sector achievement, reported the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.

This year, the categories are I-ntrepreneur of the Year, App Innovator, IT Educator, Software Solutions Implementer and ICT Achievers.

The I-ntrepreneur of the Year recognises entrepreneurs who have excelled in the IT and ICT sector. Mohammed Al Fardan has been awarded for his IT entrepreneurial zeal for the last two decades.

The best App Innovator techie award has been won by Affno for its development of Bahrain's e-government mobile app services.

Affno helped the government build the e-gov app, thus providing 1.2 million people with access to government services on mobile phones.

The University of Bolton has been given the IT Educator award for innovative undergraduate degrees and a range of postgraduate and PhD courses across creative industries specialising in IT computing and games.

It demonstrates a practical, rather than academic approach, with its teaching deeply rooted in industry and the private sector.

The Software Solution Implementer Award is conferred on companies delivering software solutions which address key business challenges.

Aurionpro is recognised for its array of self-developed software solutions such as the Aurionpro Sena, Aurionpro's SCMProFit, Enline and SeeinfoBiz.

The ICT Achievers Award recognises Gulf Air's high level of IT services that have helped achieve customer satisfaction and deliver service excellence.

Gulf Air is one of a few regional airlines to hold the global ISO certification for its information security management system.

Bahrain's national airline prescribes a risk-based approach to identify, manage and reduce the range of threats to which information is regularly subjected.

Gulf Air also successfully introduced cloud computing in 2012 and demonstrated its corporate social responsibility by adopting several "green" solutions in its IT infrastructure and practices.

A special recognition award was given to 4SPOTS co-founder Srusti Ranjan for the company's "strategic partnership and its NFC Wall", which enabled iTECH Gulf to deliver a 'real tech' experience for visitors and delegates to instantly exchange contacts and information via their smartphones.

"The 2014 winners of the iTECH Awards are all seasoned IT and ITC companies," iTECH Gulf 2014 organiser Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions managing director Jubran Abdulrahman said.

"Efforts need to be recognised and appreciated to bring out the best of innovation, performance, achievement and excellence. We feel the iTECH Awards add a new and dynamic recognition of these qualities," he added. – TradeArabia News Service