BCS is proud to announce the winners for the Individual Excellence Awards categories of its IT Professional Awards:

Young IT Practitioner of the Year Award

 Saqib Shaikh, Microsoft Corporation
Saqib is 24 years old, currently working for Microsoft UK, on the Microsoft Academy for University Hires. He graduated from the University of Essex, with a first class honours degree in Computer Science – with the highest mark in the class. Saqib went on to do an MSc, and has worked for four high profile companies since then. His entry focuses on these achievements, particularly in light of the additional barriers he has had to overcome, being blind.

IT Trainer of the Year Award

 Dave Britt, QA-IQ
As a Principal Technologist, Dave leads QA-IQ's approach to the provision of system engineer training particularly with regard to Microsoft technologies. He designs and develops ground-breaking approaches to upskilling professionals, using a wide mix of learning mechanisms including virtual classroom delivery and the use of web based e-Labs. Dave also supports the IT community with his contributions to forums and discussion groups, underlining his belief in using the latest forms of communication to add value to the training message.

The Deloitte IT Director of the Year Award – Large Organizations
(In association with The Institute of Directors)

 David Brown, Scottish Water
David has been involved in the Scottish water industry for 16 years and in that time he has carried out a wide variety of IT roles that range from systems development, support, project management, strategy development and culminating in the role that he now holds. He is very proud to have been given the opportunity to serve the Scottish people throughout a period of exciting and distinguished change.

IT Director of the Year Award – Small to Medium Sized Enterprises
(In association with The Institute of Directors)

 Neil Pearson, Hotcourses Ltd
Neil has created an off shore capability for Hotcourses that has enabled them to continue to innovate at breakneck speed while keeping their costs under control. He has proven the concept amidst some scepticism and has enabled Hotcourses to compete against the largest of the systems integrators for Education Sector IT & Data processing contracts - both in terms of price, and quality of deliverable. This is proving to be a fundamental part of their business strategy going forward.

The PMR Project Manager of the Year Award

 Ray Jackson, Post Office Ltd
Ray is the Programme Manager responsible for Post Office Ltd's S90 release and has recently implemented changes to: automate the 125 year old postal order; enable branches to accept debit and credit cards for Bureau de Change transactions; automate the inventory management process for the 72 currencies it offers; enable branches to be part of the back end track and trace services for selected mails products and provide improved communications resilience for the branch network of over 14,500 Post Office branches.

IT Developer of the Year Award

 Richard Jones, Anglia Business Solutions
Richard started at Anglia in 2003, embracing the opportunity to further his relationship with Microsoft by working through one of the leading Microsoft Gold Certified Partners. Today Richard is Development Director, focusing on extending Anglia's core competencies into areas such as ecommerce and mobility. He has worked on a number of mobile solutions from crop assessment to delivery driver applications. Richard is a regular speaker at Microsoft Global events sharing his experience in delivering solutions with the partner channel.

IT Service Manager of the Year Award

 Paul James, Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
Paul manages the Customer Services Department within the Corporate Information Technology Unit at Stockport Council. Paul's teams include the Service Desk, Data Centre, IT Training Team and the e-Government Project Team. During the last twelve months Paul has successfully project managed an ITIL® based Service Improvement Project; implemented the Service Level Management and Incident Management processes; restructured the Service Desk resulting in a 9% increase in first time resolution and improved Customer Satisfaction by 13% through a number of initiatives.