Kenya's Directorate of eGovernment has confirmed their partnership with CIO East Africa in this year CIO100 Annual Awards and Symposium scheduled for November 2011, at the Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi. The CIO100 Annual Awards seeks to award various companies and organizations in East Africa which have used ICT innovatively to impact their business.

Speaking during the press conference this morning, at eGovernment office in Harambe House, Dr Katherine Getao, ICT Secretary, Directorate of eGovernment, stated that the government will showcase how technology projects have brought efficiency in their operations, data integration and in delivering public services on an electronic platform.

“Cloud computing, mobile commerce, enterprise IT and Information security are some of the trending topics that will form this year’s CIO100 annual Symposium”, said Harry Harre, Director CIO East Africa. So far 400 delegates from five countries in the East African region are expected to attend. These will include CIOs from the five East African member states of who will be attending at the invitation of the Directorate of eGovernment.

According to Hare, the Symposium is designed to provide maximum peer-to-peer educational value other than the obvious networking and knowledge sharing. Technology users and vendors will have an opportunity to engage, share ideas and learn from each other. Technology companies like Cisco, Huawei, Orange, Compulynx, Safaricom and Virtual City are some of sponsors of this event. Some of the notable speakers are Dr Bitange Ndemo, PS, Ministry of Information and Communication; Dr Katherine Getao, ICT Secretary, Directorate of eGovernment; Louis Otieno, General Manager, Microsoft East and Southern Africa; Frank Modruson, CIO, Accenture; Professor Louis Fourie, Head of Information Systems, University of Western Cape among more than forty speakers.