The Tech Trailblazers Awards expand to acknowledge trailblazing startup personalities

On International Women’s Day, the Tech Trailblazers Awards introduce new categories to recognize the faces behind great startup innovations

London, UK – 8th March 2016 – The Tech Trailblazers Awards, the pioneering annual awards program for enterprise information technology startups, has announced the addition of new categories designed to reward the women and men behind innovative startup technologies, campaigns and company success. This expansion of the awards brings new categories for C-level startup employees, awarding Female Tech Trailblazer of the Year and Male Tech Trailblazer of the Year accolades to two successful candidates.

In these new categories, the judges will be looking for winning male and female CxO’s to demonstrate key qualities and proven achievements: driving company innovation, proof of leadership, implementing and encouraging agile practices, promoting diversity within the company, and contribution to the wider tech community.

Over the last four years, the Tech Trailblazers Awards have awarded startup companies in the Big Data, Cloud, FinTech, IoT, Networking, Mobile, Security, Storage and Virtualization space, but recognized the need to identify the catalysts of company success. The popular Emerging Markets and Firestarter categories (designed for BRICS region startups and those at early stage pre-funding level) also continue to run, no doubt bringing a variation of diverse, talented candidates for the new categories.

Rose Ross, founder of the Tech Trailblazers Awards, said “We are thrilled and excited to introduce the Female and Male Tech Trailblazer of the Year Award. It seemed fitting to do so on International Women’s Day. Positive discrimination is anything but positive. It belittles an individual’s true strength and undermines achievement. The suffragettes fought for equal rights not favours. The right to respect and to stand shoulder to shoulder with men in every walk of life and situation. The Tech Trailblazers wants to recognize the best people regardless of gender, race, orientation or disability.

Creating a level playing field for enterprise tech startups was the original motivation for the Tech Trailblazers Awards. To encourage more women into tech we need inspiring role models and powerful mentors. Men and women of all ages. These are the people that these awards will recognize.”

Think you could be the first female or male Trailblazer personality? Stay tuned via Twitter @Techtrailblaze, via Facebook or by signing up via the website. Entries for the fifth edition Tech Trailblazers will open in summer 2016. You can also check out the latest winners from the fourth edition here: http://www.techtrailblazers.com/competition-winners/competition-winners-2015/.