FAQ

The Tech Trailblazers is an exciting new awards program.

It’s global – Entries are welcomed from around the world, from Hawaii to Istanbul, from Finland to Australia. Innovation lives everywhere, and we’d like to hear about and reward the finest.

It’s focused on enterprise technology startups only. For the first year of the awards we are focusing on: big data, cloud, infosecurity, mobile, networking, storage, sustainable IT, emerging markets and virtualization. And as a separate category recognising startups in these technology areas from emerging markets.

The program recognizes and rewards technological and commercial innovation and entrepreneurial excellence.

Winners in each category win mentoring from a leading vendor and VC and IPO boot camps, along with thousands of dollars’ worth of prizes.

Twitter: @techtrailblaze

Throughout the awards program we will regularly update our feed, so please follow us at @techtrailblaze. You can also follow the Twitter buzz on the hashtag #TTAwards.

Website: www.techtrailblazers.com

Linked In: linkedin.com/company/tech-trailblazers-awards

Stephen O’Donnell (@stephenodonnell), chairman of the Tech Trailblazers judging panel, will be facilitating a series of webinars called “Tech Trailblazers on Innovation and the Startup” giving PR professionals and tech startups an opportunity to find out more about the awards and get the inside track from us and some of the judges. We will make sure everyone who contacts us is kept aware of those dates and participation information.

Email: innovate@techtrailblazers.com

Everyone who expresses an interest in the Tech Trailblazers will get regular updates on deadlines and other news. You can sign up in the ‘subscribe’ box on the homepage too.

Enterprise tech startups that are less than five years old (based on time of the company was founded) and privately funded or at C-series funding or below are eligible. Entries must be submitted before the deadline on September 12th.

The awards are given to companies, in recognition of products or services that deliver innovation in the big data, cloud, infosecurity, mobile, networking, storage, sustainable IT, emerging markets and virtualization categories.

The Tech Trailblazers is now open and receiving submissions.

23.59pm (Pacific Time) September 12th, 2012 UPDATE: Due to GoDaddy outages impacting some entrants, deadline extend to 23:59pm on Friday 21^stSeptember 

The shortlist will be announced in Mid-October.

Voting closes on Friday December 14th, and we will announce winners the following week.

There is no physical event. This is a global program covering a wide range of technology sectors, and we felt we could only have a party if all the winners, finalists, judges, sponsors and other Tech Trailblazers could be there. Because that is not feasible, we decided to focus our efforts on putting together a fantastic package for the winners, and we are sure that all the winners and runners-up will celebrate their success, wherever they are.

Yes. The cost of submissions is $295 for the first category and then $150 for any additional categories.

When you upload the entry form, you will automatically be prompted to pay online.

The early bird submissions rate has now closed. Normal submissions rates of $295 for the first category and then $150 for any additional categories apply. The early bird submissions rate deadline for the 2013 Tech Trailblazers awards will be approximately 4 weeks before final entries close. Please subscribe to our updates to be up to speed with these dates for 2013.

As long as your innovation demonstrates a clear business benefit for customers in that category, then yes, you can enter as many categories as you like. Please make sure you upload all entries before heading to pay as this ensures you receive all multiple entry discounts. If you do not, we can refund the difference at our discretion, but it will be subject to an administration fee per extra entry submitted separately.

This category focuses on startups headquartered in emerging markets, not companies selling into these regions. We will list the specific countries classified as emerging markets in the category description HERE once submissions open. The category is open to all enterprise technology startups from those regions.

We will also subsidize the cost of entry for companies headquartered in emerging markets. The Emerging Markets Trailblazers category is free of charge to enter alongside any other category, or it costs just $50 for a standalone submission to this category.

Yes. To ensure we do our best to support as many enterprise tech startups as we can, we have been able to secure a range of free products and services from sponsors to share with companies once they have submitted their entries. The current value of this package stands at over $3,000 per entrant, but we expect it to increase as more sponsors come onboard.

Category winners receive exclusive coaching, mentoring and development from VCs, financial experts, and leading CTOs within large industry-vendors in their technology area.

Winners and runners-up will also receive a variety of business development, PR, marketing and other products and services worth thousands of pounds. The total estimated prize fund is projected at over $1,000,000 and stands at over $550,000 to date (August 2012).

Exactly who will look at your entry will not be disclosed. It will include at least 2 of the industry experts in each category you have entered.

At present the judging panel includes:
Mohit Agrawal, Founder and Editor, Telecom Circle (Twitter: @telecomcircle)
Cynthia Artin, President, Artin Arts (@cynthiaartin)
Joe Baguley, Chief Cloud Technologist, VMware (@joebaguley)
Frank J. Bernhard, Strategy and Operations Director, Deloitte Consulting (@FrankJBernhard)
Steve Broadhead, Founder and Director, Broadband-Testing Labs (@steve_broadhead)
Rebel Brown, Author and Startup Veteran (@RebelBrown)
Mike Burkitt, CTO, Launchpad Europe (@launchpadeurope)
Teresa Cottam, Founder and Chief Analyst, Telesperience (@teresacottam)
Chris Evans, Consultant and Blogger, TheStorageArchitect.com (@chrismevans)
Marty Foltyn, Hands-On Lab Program, SNIA (@MartyFoltyn)
Ian French, Channel Guru, Mentor and Entrepreneur (@siceo)
Edward P. Gibson, Director, Forensic Technology Solutions, Pricewaterhousecoopers (@EdwardPGibson)
Martin Glassborow, Blogger, Storagebod (@storagebod)
Mark Hillary, CEO IT Decisions (@markhillary)
Brian Honan, CEO, BH Consulting (@brianhonan)
Elise Huang, Partner, WestSummit Capital
Sam Johnston, Director, Cloud & IT Services, Equinix (@samj)
Ben Kepes, Principal, Diversity Limited (@benkepes)
Justin Lodge, Infrastructure Architect, National Australia Bank (@justin_lodge)
Chris Mellor, Storage Editor, The Register (@chris_mellor)
Steve O’Donnell, Consultant, Advisor and Author, TheHotAisle.com (@stephenodonnell)
W. Curtis Preston, CEO, TruthInIT (@wcpreston)
Simon Robinson, Research Vice President, 451 Research (@simonrob451)
Kai Roer, Senior Partner, The Roer Group (@kairoer)
Raj Samani, EMEA Strategy Advisor, Cloud Security Alliance (@raj_samani)
Andrew Seldon, Editor, Hi-Tech Security Solutions, TechNews (@andrewseldon)
Sarb Sembhi, Director, Consultancy Services, Incoming Thought (@sarbsembhi)
Enrico Signoretti, Senior Consultant, Juku Consulting SRL (@esignoretti)
Harkeeret Singh, Global Head of Energy & Sustainable IT, Thomson Reuters (@harqs)
Jennifer Steffens, CEO, IOactive (@securesun)
Stuart Sumner, Editor, Computing (@stuartsumner)
Jon Toigo, CEO, Toigo Partners International (@jontoigo)
Matthew Yeager, Chief Technologist, Colt Technology Services (@mpyeager)
Monica Zlotogorski, Editor, Inside Latin America, TM Forum (@MonicaCZN)

We have a healthy bank of judges now, but we do anticipate a lot of entries, so we will review the judging pool over the summer and may add additional judges, if required.

Judges from our extensive pool of industry experts around the world will short-list a number of startups in each category. Once the shortlist has been finalized in mid-October, we will ask the finalists to add additional information to their entries, including a short informative video about who they are and why they should win.

The awards will then be opened up to a public vote. The category judges will also vote for their favourites.

We are finalizing this now and will update entrants soon.

Sponsors to date include MIT/Stanford Venture Lab, the Cloud Security Alliance, Launchpad Europe, Prezi, RealWire, Computing, Lissted, Mynewsdesk, Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), the ExecEvent and Wazoku. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor or an industry partner, please contact the Tech Trailblazers team - innovate@techtrailblazers.com

The mentoring sponsors are large vendors whose CTO offices will provide a CTO boot camp or other mentoring for the winners.

We are finalizing these mentoring sponsors and will update this information via the Twitter stream and press announcements as soon as we can.

Industry-leading vendors and service providers interested in sponsoring a category should contact Dave Littman from the sponsorship team – david@truthinit.com / +1 760-712-3313 x804
/ @dhlittman.

Yes, there will be. We are launching our media partner program and hope to announce the first of those soon.
Media partners will help publicize the awards and provide subscriptions, publicity and other prizes for runners-up and winners.
Any media outlets interested in partnering should contact our PR team, Omarketing. Olivia Shannon – Olivia@Omarketing.co.uk / @Olivia_at_O.