GTBank and Jumia were among other winners at the maiden edition of the internet awards, GAGE AWARDS, held recently in Lagos. The awards had 22 categories with five of the categories audience-driven. GTBank won the Banking app of the Year while Jumia won the Website of the Year and Jumia Food also won in the Breakout App of the Year categories.
Others winners are sex for grade by Kiki Mordi, in the online film and documentary of the year; Skinny Girl in Transit also won the Web Series of the Year, among others.
Managing director of Airtel Nigeria, Segun Ogunsanya, won the Online Person of the Year, while Onyeka Akuma, bagged Entrepreneur of the Year award. Speaking on the award, convener of the award, Mr. Johnson Anorh, said “as the internet has become the fulcrum of growth, the biggest and innovation things in society, it is only wise that such an important platform to have a standard. We set out to create a standard with Gage award.”
Also speaking on the processes, he said they have five audience choices, these are categories where the audience gets to determine who gets the award and 19 categories that are based on judges because the audience doesn’t have the information that will help the people that will win in that category like the website of the year. “The audiences go to the website and do their work but the professional knows that there are structured interface and navigation that help determine the best websites. Those categories and certain apps have been given to judges to determine.
“While the other categories like entertainment, banking app of the year, we all use the banks and we know the banks that give us the best service and the breakout out the app of the year. We all know the apps that just came from nowhere and have come to make our lives easier.
So, these categories are audience-driven and we hope to extend the boundaries, going forward. The Gage award has come to stay, and it means that we keep innovating, and we hope that it is going to be an annual event. It is an annual thing and we have other thing planed around it. We got the Gage room. Gage room is a tech activity on campus where we have the tech hubs around campuses to spotlight on innovation that take place. Se, we are going to be busy all throughout the year pending when the next gauge award will happen.”
