GFT and Tech Trailblazers blazing trails to create new FinTech Trailblazers Award

GFT and Tech Trailblazers blazing trails to create new FinTech Trailblazers Award

GFT will also sponsor the Big Data Trailblazers Award

LONDON, UK - August 12th 2014 - The highly successful Tech Trailblazers Awards today announced a new category for the awards, the FinTech Trailblazers, which is being created with new sponsor GFT, a leading IT solutions provider in the banking sector. The new category will reward and recognize the best of breed FinTech startups who are blazing trails in the financial services sector.

GFT, an expert in big data in the financial services industry, will also sponsor the Big Data Trailblazers category.

The new category opens up the first of vertical markets for the leading independent enterprise technology startup awards. Its stablemates include the new category of Internet of Things and existing Cloud, Infosecurity, Big Data, Storage, and other awards categories. Startups have until August 29^th to complete their entries.

Christopher Ortiz, Managing Director of GFT UK, commented “GFT is already a big supporter of the startup ecosystem with its groundbreaking CODE_n innovation platform. The opportunity for GFT to recognize excellence in the FinTech startup community reinforces our commitment to innovative approaches such as harnessing big data to the challenges faced by banking today.”  The Tech Trailblazers Awards is an independent international awards platform for startups which gives more than just recognition to the best ideas and innovation. Winners are awarded with prizes worth thousands of dollars from an estimated US $1 million prize fund, to fuel the growth of their business. These include expert mentoring, exposure to investors, business development tools and more. The Tech Trailblazers Awards prize fund, again projected to be worth in excess of $1m, is supported by sponsors and industry partners including the Cloud Security Alliance, Computing, Gigaom, Innovation Warehouse, IP EXPO Europe, Mynewsdesk, RealWire, VMware, and many others.

Enterprise IT startups can enter the following categories: big data, cloud, emerging markets, IoT, mobile technology, networking, IT security, storage, sustainable IT and virtualization. All entrants will also be automatically entered free of charge for Regional Trailblazers Cups – a further chance to win an award, and be crowned Trailblazer for their geographical region.

Rose Ross,  Tech Trailblazers Awards founder and Chief Trailblazer, explained, “It is very exciting to welcome GFT, a key player in both the big data and the financial services market, to the Tech Trailblazers Awards and  bring another strong startup ambassador into the Tech Trailblazers ecosystem. GFT’s ability to connect our winners with other key players within the innovative space of financial services is a great benefit for our winners. We have been toying with adding vertical market foci into the categories for a while and GFT’s support means we can kick that off with the very active FinTech startup space.”

The Tech Trailblazers Awards will be determined by a combination of public voting and an extensive expert panel of judges from around the world. Industry analysts, editors, entrepreneurs, startup specialists and CTO’s from all backgrounds in enterprise technology make up this year’s panel, and are eager to review a new wave of startup talent and crown this year’s Tech Trailblazers.

Media Contacts

For Tech Trailblazers

Rosalind Carr

Omarketing

UK: +44 (0)20 8255 5225

US: +1 781 519 0275

Rosalind@omarketing.com

@Rosalind_at_O

About the Tech Trailblazers Awards

www.techtrailblazers.com @techtrailblaze

Tech Trailblazers is a new concept in awards, designed explicitly for smaller businesses and startups that are five years old or less and at C-series funding or below. The awards have low barriers to entry and prizes that not only recognize startup innovation, but also proactively help startups grow their business with access to exclusive coaching, mentoring and development and prizes. The awards include the following categories:

·  Big Data Trailblazers

·  Cloud Trailblazers

·  Emerging Markets Trailblazers

·  FinTech Trailblazers

·  IoT Trailblazers

·  Mobile Trailblazers

·  Networking Trailblazers

·  Security Trailblazers

·  Storage Trailblazers

·  Sustainable IT Trailblazers

·  Virtualization Trailblazers

In addition to the above categories, all entrants are automatically entered into the Regional Trailblazers Cup competition free of charge. The Regional Cups will be announced at the end of November and the individual Cups are:

·  African and Middle East Trailblazers Cup

·  Asian-Pacific Trailblazers Cup

·  European Trailblazers Cup

·  Latin American Trailblazers Cup

·  North American Trailblazers Cup

The Tech Trailblazers Awards prize fund, projected to be worth in excess of $1m, is supported by sponsors and industry partners including AfriLabs, Amoo Venture Capital Advisory, beSUCCESS, bnetTV, BigDataStartups, China AXLR8R, the Cloud Security Alliance, Computing, The Data Chain, ExecEvent, GFT, Gigaom, The Green Grid, GSMA, The Icehouse, Innovation Warehouse, Internet of Things Events, IP EXPO Europe, Launchpad Europe, L’Informaticien, Lissted, MIT/Stanford Venture Lab, Mynewsdesk, The Next Silicon Valley, Outsource, Prezi, RealWire, Seed Forum, Silicon Cape Initiative, Skolkovo, StarTau, Startup America, Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), Tech in Asia, TechNode, TiE Silicon Valley, Wazoku, Ventureburn and VMware.