DTW23 – Ignite, Copenhagen, Denmark – September 19^th  2023 — TM Forum, the leading global alliance of telco and tech companies, today reveals the winners of its 2023 Excellence Awards in a celebration that closed the first successful day of DTW23 – Ignite.

TM Forum received nearly 200 submissions from over 70 companies, which were evaluated by a panel of 26 independent industry experts to select 36 finalists after two rounds of judging.

As a neutral and non-profit organization, TM Forum’s awards are held to a high standard of excellence and impartiality. They celebrate the achievements of leading industry organizations and figures and provide them with valuable exposure and recognition from their peers.

“TM Forum’s Excellence Awards celebrate successful trailblazers in telecom and tech. This year, the high quality and diversity of entries really challenged the judging panel,” said Camille Mendler, Chief Analyst at Omdia and Head External Judge. “Congratulations to the winners who are setting the industry standard for excellence and teaching their peers how to thrive.”

This year’s winners and projects are:

People & Planet

This award recognizes companies for the successful application of new technologies and innovative solutions to improve people’s lives, enhance our societies and/or protect our environment.

Winner: Optiva & Lifecell – Supporting connectivity, the lifeblood of daily life, with expanded protection in dangerous times

Autonomous Operations

This award recognizes companies for innovation and excellence in intent-based closed loop automation of network and/or IT operations through the application of AI and machine learning.
  
Winner: China Unicom – Intelligent network operation based on AI knowledge graph

Customer Experience

This award recognizes companies for excellence in the application of data, AI and customer journey innovation to deliver personalized, differentiated experiences for consumers and/or enterprise customers.

Winner: Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) – VNPT customer experience transformation model

IT Agility

This award recognizes companies for delivering an outstanding IT transformation project to increase business agility through system and process innovation based on open standards.

Winner: Telstra – IT transformation through system and process innovation using TMF653/656

Market Innovation

This award recognizes companies for pioneering B2B2X business models, and/or ecosystem partnerships, using advanced communications and other novel technologies to deliver growth in new markets.

Winner: China Mobile & Huawei – “Value First Network as a Service” creates sustainable business growth

Network Agility

This award recognizes companies for leadership in deploying next generation network software architectures utilizing cloud native approaches based on open standards.

Winner: Whale Cloud & China Unicom – An operation mode change by building the world’s largest centralized network resource center

“I’d like to congratulate every winner of the 2023 Excellence Awards,” said Nik Willetts, CEO of TM Forum. “Each project has demonstrated the power of industry co-creation to unlock the most valuable digital transformation plays, capturing the spirit of DTW23 – Ignite perfectly. Our independent, impartial judging panel has done a great job once again in recognizing outstanding work that is driving our industry’s evolution forward.”

Individual award:

At the end of the awards ceremony, TM Forum CTO, George Glass, also gave out a Distinguished Engineer award to Jörg Niemöller – a TM Forum accolade which recognizes individuals who have made a sustained, positive impact on the industry through use and implementation of TM Forum best practices and standards.

As a long-time member of TM Forum, serial Catalyst participant, and Co-Chair of the Autonomous Networks Project, Jörg has been the driving force behind the introduction and development of Intent within TM Forum and across the telecoms industry. Jörg has authored, edited, and delivered over 30 TM Forum assets relating to the Intent Models, the TM Forum Intent Ontology (TIO), and the TMF921 Intent API.

For the complete list of this year’s finalists, visit: Excellence Awards Finalist 2023 – TM Forum.

-ENDS- 

About TM Forum 

TM Forum is a global alliance of telco and tech companies, leading the industry in defining the building blocks for new operating models, impactful new partnerships, and advanced software platforms.

TM Forum helps its members unlock the value of data to create nearly endless opportunities for players across the communications ecosystem. At DTW23 – Ignite, Accelerate and Collaboration events, TM Forum provides a platform for industry change-makers to share groundbreaking innovation, market developments, product launches and business transformation journeys.

We are the only industry body to count the world’s top 10 CSPs and all the key hyperscalers as active, strategic members. With over 800 members, we are on a mission to reinvent the telco industry as a vibrant part of the digital landscape – and a driving force in shaping its future. To find out more, visit: tmforum.org

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