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The Cape IT Initiative (CITI) concluded a bumper year last night announcing the winners of its VIP Graduate Club and Women in IT programme.
Kathy McCabe was announced as the overall winner in the Women in IT programme. McCabe runs Radical Learning, which supplies bespoke learning software as well as training to a number of underprivileged schools in the Western Cape.
Kathy epitomises what CITI stands for. Not only is she a smart and dynamic woman, but her work is furthering the growth of IT amongst our young people. By exposing them to IT at a young age we are increasing their reading and technology literacy, said Viola Manuel, executive director of CITI.
The VIP Graduate Club focuses on equipping IT graduates with additional business skills that will help them excel in both the corporate and the entrepreneurial spaces.
Lee Meyer walked away with the prize in the corporate stream, and Nayeela Joomaye scooped best entrepreneur title. The VIP Graduate Club is run in conjunction with Microsoft SA.
McCabe and Joomaye will join other Western Cape entrepreneurs in the CITI incubator, Bandwidth Barn, for the duration of 2008. McCabe will also be accompanying other CITI member companies to the premier IT exhibition CEBIT in Germany next year, where she will showcase her products and services to a global market.
Newly elected CITI Chair, Andrea Böhmert, outlined the organisations vision for the next three years saying that real innovation was required if Western Cape companies were to take their place on the global stage.
³If Cape-based IT entrepreneurs want to grow their businesses, they will need to shift their mindset, climb out of their comfort zones and develop the skills that are necessary to cope with the international competition outside of our home turf,² she said.
CITI also issued a call for interest for both Women in IT and the VIP Graduate Club for 2008.
Next year holds enormous promise for our local companies. CITI has continued to refine its delivery. Our success has been recognised internationally, with the Canadian government requesting detailed delivery plans in order to replicate some of our programmes. CITI continues to grow from strength to strength, but our continued success still depends on a functional and determined IT cluster, Manuel concluded.
Interested entrepreneurs can contact CITI via email on admin@citi.org.za