The Tech Trailblazers Awards strengthens African ties with @AfriLabs Partnerships #TTAwards @Techtrailblaze

London, UK and New York - 1st August 2013 – The global enterprise tech startups awards, The Tech Trailblazers (@techtrailblaze) today announced a partnership with AfriLabs (@Afrilabs), a pan-African network of technology and innovation hubs promoting the growth and development of the African technology sector. AfriLabs believe that by working together, individual labs improve the chances of success and create greater opportunities for its members.

With 20 accelerators and hubs in 13 countries across Africa and an active social media following, AfriLabs is the largest tech hub network in Africa and in the perfect position to support a partnership that reaches across multiple countries on the continent.

As part of the partnership with the Tech Trailblazers Awards, AfriLabs is now able to offer its members a chance to gain visibility with some of the technology industry’s most influential people across the world via the judging panel, as well offering the platform for them to compete in a globally recognised enterprise technology competition, with categories including cloud, mobile, info security, big data, virtualisation, networking, storage, sustainable IT and emerging markets.  In addition, all African entrants will be automatically entered for the Middle East and Africa Cup.

AfriLabs Director Tayo Akinyemi said about the partnership, “Partnering with the Tech Trailblazers Awards is a great opportunity for AfriLabs to enable its network members to be rewarded for their innovation. Making new connections with the judging network, having the chance to win great sponsor prizes and receiving visibility on an international scale is very exciting.”

Rose Ross, Founder and Chief Trailblazer said, “Being able to reach into Africa and bring their finest in enterprise technology to a global platform is going to be a great experience and it will be interesting to see how they compare with all the other entrants from around the world.”

The new African partnerships add to the collaboration with Silicon Cape, Ventureburn and Tech News. The Tech Trailblazers Awards is open to entries until September 12th 2013.

Tweet: .@Afrilabs calling all African enterprise tech startups: Enter the Tech Trailblazers #Awards @techtrailblaze www.techtrailblazers.com  [132 characters including spaces]

Media Contact

For Tech Trailblazers Awards
Olivia Shannon
Omarketing (For the Tech Trailblazers)
UK: +44 (0)208 255 5225
US: +1 781 519 0275
olivia@omarketing.com
www.twitter.com/Olivia_at_O

Last year’s winners and runners-up are listed at http://techtrailblazers.com/tech-trailblazers-winners-2012/  

The Tech Trailblazers Awards 2014 are now open. Please email innovate@techtrailblazers.com  to receive regular updates or more information, follow us on Twitter @techtrailblaze or via the hashtag #TTAwards, or visit us on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/company/tech-trailblazers-awards.

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 businesses with access to exclusive coaching, mentoring and development and prizes from a prize fund worth an estimated $1m+. The awards include the following categories:

•   Big Data Trailblazers
•   Cloud Trailblazers
•   Emerging Markets 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 include:

•   African and Middle East Trailblazers Cup
•   Asian-Pacific Trailblazers Cup
•   European Trailblazers Cup
•   Latin American Trailblazers Cup
•   North American Trailblazers Cup

About AfriLabs

AfriLabs is a pan-African network of tech and innovation hubs founded to support the growth of communities around African technology hubs. Each hub serves as a nexus for technologists, investors, tech companies and web/mobile engineers in its community. AfriLabs was formed to support these hubs and bolster technology as a platform for entrepreneurship and innovation. Ultimately, AfriLabs believes it will have impact by supporting the growth of Africa’s knowledge economy through the development of an innovation infrastructure composed of hubs and other key stakeholders. http://afrilabs.com