Judges

The Techworld Awards judging panel is made up of a number of respected industry experts from across the technology sector.

Mike Simons, Editor, Techworld

Mike is the Editor of Techworld, joining IDG from Reed in 2006, where he worked on Computer Weekly and ComputerWeekly.com since 1999. He was News editor at the launch of ComputerWeekly.com in 2001 and news editor of a combined Computer Weekly and ComputerWeekly.com operation from 2003. Mike helped Computer Weekly secure the Periodical Publishers Association awards as either "magazine of the year" or "campaigning magazine of the year" for four years out of five. Mike joined IDG as launch editor of ComputerworldUK and has recently also taken over responsibility of Techworld. Mike also sits on the SAP Global Quality Awards judging panel.

Craig Dale, Chief Executive, SAP User Group

With over ten years of proven business development experience and a post graduate MBA from Teesside University, Craig joined the UK & Ireland SAP User Group as its first employee towards the end of 2004. With the board of directors, Craig has led the User Group through intense growth. It now has membership base of over 400 organisations comprising more than 4,000 professionals, who collectively have an unrivalled level of expertise in SAP software and its deployment.

Andy Mulholland, Global Chief Technology Officer, Cap Gemini

Andy Mulholland joined Capgemini in 1996, bringing with him thirteen years of experience from previous senior IT roles across all major industry sectors.  In his current role as Global Chief Technology Officer, Andy is a member of the Capgemini Group management board and advises on all aspects of technology-driven market changes, as well as serving on the technology advisory boards of several organisations and enterprises, and being a member of the Policy Board for the British Computer Society.  In 2006, Andy drew on his wealth of knowledge of Web 2.0 and Service Oriented Architecture technologies and co-authored the globally recognised book ‘Mashup Corporations’ with Chris Thomas of Intel. This was followed in May 2008 by ‘Mesh Collaboration’ with Nick Earl of Cisco as his co-author. More recently, Andy has published a third book in this series entitled “Enterprise Cloud Computing: A Strategy Guide for Business and Technology leaders” co-authored with well-known academic Peter Fingar and one of the leading authorities on business process, John Pyke.

Collin Williams, Practice Leader, Computacenter UK

Colin Williams is Practice Leader for Networking, Security and Communications business at Computacenter UK. He works with all of the major business units of Computacenter, which is one of Europe’s biggest independent providers of IT infrastructure services. He holds an MBA from Hull University.

Steve Broadhead, Founder & Director, Broadband Testing Labs

Steve Broadhead runs Broadband-Testing Labs, an independent test organisation, in Andorra, as well as writing on a freelance basis for a number of publications.  Steve’s  IT and networking experience dates back to the early 1980’s, deploying and managing PC networks for two insurance companies, after which time he made a sideways move into the world of computer journalism where he single-handedly introduced the world of networking to the UK publishing industry.

In 1991 he formed Comnet, which became The NSS Group, with Bob Walder, specialising in network product testing, and consultancy for vendors and the publishing industry.  In 1998, Steve created the NSS labs and seminar centre in the Languedoc region of France, offering a wide range of test and media services to the IT industry. In 2009 he moved into the mobile and mobile data world, launching Mobile Test Labs to offer the same scientific approach to mobile device and application testing as witnessed in the networking world with Broadband-Testing.

Steve also acts as advisor to a number of UK start-ups in the Software Asset Management, Compliance, network optimisation and Internet conferencing (desktop collaboration) space.

Lisa Dobson, Deputy Chairman, UK Oracle User Group

Lisa Dobson is Deputy Chairman of UK Oracle User Group, where she has been a speaker and volunteer since 2004, before joining the Board of Directors in 2008.

Lisa is an Oracle professional, with 14 years of experience of working with Oracle technologies in a number of technical roles and is currently a DBA at Durham University.

Douglas Hayward, Research Director, IDC

Douglas Hayward is a research director at analyst IDC looking at BPO markets and business-transformation issues in Europe, working as part of IDC’s pan-European Software and Services group. He specialises in research, tracking business-process outsourcing and business-transformation services in Western Europe.

John Dunn, Co-Founder, Techworld

John is one of the co-founders of Techworld. He started in IT journalism as technical editor of Personal Computer Magazine, and went on to edit several other titles including LAN Magazine, its successor Network World, and later the leading trade weekly of its time, Network Week. After editing startup technology title Tornado-Insider, he went on to Techword in 2003. He has also freelanced for a number of technical publications in the technology, science and business fields.

Louise Simmons, Contributor, Techworld

Louise Simmons has been working in the telecommunications and networking industry for 20 years. Her network support and project commissioning work for several large finance houses and petrochemical companies. She holds CCIE and CCDE certifications and is a Certified Cisco Systems Instructor. Louise now works as an independent network consultant.

Dave Cartwright, Contributor, Techworld

Dave has been a consultant editor for Techworld since its launch. Dave is a technology consultant, specialising in networking, telecomms, security and Internet application development. He has variously worked as a systems and network manager in academia and the defence industry, a full-time writer, technical director of an international test lab, head of IT for a multi-national publisher and CTO of both an Internet startup and later a venture capital organisation.