The Judging Process
The judging process is in four stages: initial assessment, release of the shortlist, release of the finalists, and the release of the final winners. See the “about” page for a list of FAQs on the Cloud Awards programs. You may also see a complete breakdown of rules and costs here.
Judging is primarily based on the quality of the awards application, and no other materials need be supplied. Entrants are encouraged to write to the word count given for each question, to ensure sufficient evidence is given.
- Your awards application is the most important metric in our assessment of your submission to any of the Cloud Awards programs.
- Supplementary materials such as presentations and extra data are also permissible, and you may share these at the point at which you upload your submissions form. If you exercise restraint in the volume of additional materials supplied, they will be more likely to be scrutinized.
- Testimonials and case studies, whether illustrated on the submissions form or provided separately, can often be the deciding factor in a category — beyond your own assurances of excellence and innovation, having confirmation from your customers can be very persuasive.
- Third-party or supplementary metrics such as net promoter scores and online reviews may also be used in some category assessments at the judges’ discretion.
- Links to videos of your solution in action may also be used by the judges to help them make an informed decision, particularly in UX/UI categories.
All awards submissions are treated in the strictest commercial confidence by the judging team.
The Judging Panel
The The Cloud Computing Awards program, the Software-as-a-Service Awards program, the Cloud Security Awards program, the A.I. Awards program and the FinTech Awards program each aim to take a holistic approach in awards assessment, both geographically and in the measurement of success. The judges below head up an ever-growing global team who assist in the judging process, and represent a mix of technical, business, academic and marketing expertise.
Annabelle Whittall is an experienced Systems Engineer who has worked for over a decade in research and development alongside companies such as Rolls Royce, Boeing, QinetiQ, BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin. Career highlights include developing a state-of-the-art satellite navigation capability program, and most recently, working on a cloud-based solution in single end-to-end geospatial capability and AI. Annabelle is an active STEM ambassador, a member of the Women’s Engineering Society and holds a degree in Mathematics and Statistical Science from the University College London. She is passionate about what the cloud can do for environmental sustainability.
Maneet Bansal is a professional with over 12 years of industry experience and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Cornell University. He is widely recognized for expertise in distributed systems with companies such as Meta, Amazon, and Adobe. Mr. Bansal has worked on projects from computer security to IoT and AI systems. He has designed, developed, and managed highly reliable systems that serve millions of transactions per second and work with petabytes of data. Currently, he works as a tech lead at Meta, providing in-house cloud services for a variety of use cases such as ML, video processing, and hardware provisioning.
Raghuram Pendyala is an accomplished Principal Software Engineering Manager working at Microsoft. With over 15 years of experience in the field, he has deep expertise in building and delivering large-scale, highly reliable, and innovative enterprise platforms in the cloud. Raghuram has a proven track record of delivering innovative SaaS solutions that cater to a variety of industries. Raghuram has a master degree in Computer Applications from National Institute of Technology, India.
Graham has specialized in User Experience Design since before the turn of the millennium, at organizations including BBC, Yahoo!, Symantec, Daily Telegraph, Vodafone and Yell. He’s provided consultancy to start-ups and also built and led teams in enterprise organizations. Graham specializes in outcome-driven methodologies such as Lean UX. He currently teaches UX/UI Design to international students at Flatiron School.
Christopher Southall is a Computer Science & Business Management graduate with 15 years’ experience across both business and government sectors. His current role is Global Business Intelligence and Analytics Lead for SNC Lavalin Group Inc, where he manages a global team designing and delivering cloud-based business intelligence and analytics solutions across Finance, HR, Reward, Talent, L&D, ERP and other corporate functions.
Deepthi Mohan is a Principal Technical Product Manager with 12+ years industry experience. She currently works at AWS (Amazon Web Services) to envision, execute, and launch highly available, secure, and scalable data streaming services. Previously, she helped build analytics applications at PwC and worked as a software engineer on SaaS applications for Enterprise Resource Planning at SAP Labs. She holds a Master’s degree in Information Systems and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering.
Chris Bennett is an experienced market researcher and consultant who has spent over a decade helping brands including Nissan and Estée Lauder to understand the messaging, segmentation, and products consumers need most. He specializes in social analytics data and the importance of personality traits, emotions and consumer behaviors. Chris is an Associate Director at Material, a global strategy, insights, design, and technology firm based in Los Angeles. Chris has a Masters degree in Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods from The University of Chicago.
Sharda is a global business technology leader with over 15 years’ experience in CRM and Enterprise Architecture. Her accomplishments traverse diverse sectors in prominent positions at organizations like Airbnb, Salesforce, Wells Fargo, and Avaya. Sharda directs multi-million-dollar business technology initiatives. A thought-leader in the CRM application domain, Sharda boasts an impressive repertoire of academic publications and white papers exploring groundbreaking concepts in CRM.
Ketan Vijayvargiya is a Senior Software Development Engineer at the AWS division in Amazon, Seattle. He has more than 12 years of experience in the IT/software industry, almost ten of that with Amazon. He routinely solves hard problems in distributed systems and helps democratize machine learning and cloud technologies for people around the globe. For several years, Ketan has worked with Amazon Web Services helping to build the “cloud” itself. Before that, Ketan built automated systems that advertised for Amazon on highly-optimized social networks including Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Long before that, Ketan built the mobile business of India’s 2nd biggest e-commerce website from the ground up.
Baljit Singh is a senior consultant at IBM. An experienced IT professional with 19 years of experience in SAP Transformation Projects, he has supported clients in across manifold industries including Oil and Gas, Consumer Goods, Retail, Hitech, Fintech and Pubic sector. Baljit has worked on the latest technologies in the SAP Analytics space, such as: SAP EHANA XSA, SAP BW4HANA, SAP S4HANA, SAP BW and SAP Business objects. He has worked in many different capacities: individual contributor, team lead, solution architect and project manager. Baljit has excellent skills in communicating with project stakeholders both from a functional and technical background.
Maitri is a Lead Software Engineer at Disney Streaming where she has been instrumental in creating ad solutions across Disney online platforms. Previously, At eBay, she worked in the e-commerce marketplace domain and contributed to developing features to enhance user experience and generate revenue. She holds a Masters degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Maitri is passionate about advocating for STEM education and mentors non-profit organisations as a Global ambassador and STEM advisor. Through outreach and panel talks, Maitri has mentored over 1,000 girls and inspired them to explore STEM fearlessly and pursue careers in technology and leadership.
David is a software developer. He has worked on customer management systems and machine translation for an international translation and interpreting company and currently works on the national COVID-19 and flu vaccine booking systems used by the NHS, the UK health service. David graduated from The University of Leeds with a degree in computer science.
Monambigha is an accomplished Technical Program Manager with over six years of experience in cloud infrastructure strategy and development. Currently, she holds the position of Technical Program Manager at Google. She holds a Masters in Management Information Systems and a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology. Her experience includes leading complex, cross-organizational programs globally, resulting in significant cost savings and operational efficiencies. Monambigha has held several leadership positions, including Diversity and Inclusion Lead for Cloud Engineering Organization and Bay Area Cloud Learning and Development Lead.
Varun Shah is a technology leader at Amazon, leading a team of highly skilled and passionate Engineers. Varun and his team build cutting-edge global security services applications utilizing micro-services, cloud, ML/AI and dev-ops. These applications helps Amazon internal and external apps to be secured. Varun has held critical roles for over 15 years at various large organizations like ServiceNow, Sony PlayStation, Medimpact Healthcare and Tata Consultancy Services. He has made many contributions in the area of Software Engineering, Cybersecurity and open source software development and published research articles. He is passionate about using latest and greatest technologies to solve real world problems in novel ways.
Sujith is a Principal Software Engineer at Dollar General Corporation with more than 15 years of working experience as a Lead Software Engineer. Sujith works on some of the most advanced applications in the industry, with excellent working knowledge of the software development life cycle, .NET technologies, web technologies, HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript (jQuery, AJAX, manipulating Json), Atlassian development tools (Jira, Bitbucket, Confluence), standard development tools like Visual Studio and SSMS, and various software patterns such as MVC, Factory, Singleton, Observer, and State. Sujith provides mentorship and supervises developers. Sujith graduated from The University of Illinois Springfield with a Master’s degree in Computer Science.
Meenakshi Jindal is a Senior Software Engineer with over 15 years of experience in software design and implementation across multiple industries, including banking, insurance, travel, and media. She has a specialized skill set in designing high-performance, scalable, and reliable distributed systems that facilitate seamless integrations within the Netflix studio and content ecosystem. She has a strong passion for resolving complex challenges pertaining to cloud-distributed systems and NO-SQL databases like Cassandra and Elasticsearch. She holds a Master’s degree in Computer Application and an MS in Information Systems and Management, which have helped her hone her expertise. She is certified Associate AWS Certified Solutions Architect and is a senior member of IEEE.
Yagnik Suchak is a seasoned Engineering Leader with a wealth of experience in designing and developing highly scalable, multi-cloud, and cloud-native software services. With a proven track record of success in leading cross-functional and geo-distributed teams, Yagnik is a sought-after expert in his field. He is currently a Tech Lead at Apple, where he focuses on building enterprise application platforms. Prior to this, Yagnik played a key role in scaling the gaming platform at Skillz, which now boasts millions of users across the globe. He also conducted groundbreaking research in Software Engineering while doing his Masters in Computer Science at UC Davis.
Jason is a former web designer, systems administrator and technical consultant. Now a technical trainer, he specializes in areas including CompTIA course track and Microsoft systems and applications.
Prakashkumar Patel is a big data expert with more than 15 years of industry experience and working as a lead software engineer at Salesforce. Over the years, he helped build big data solutions that processed trillion of events daily. He played a critical role in the digital transformation of organizations by enabling them to harness the power of data to drive innovation, improve customer experiences, and increase operational efficiency. His expertise in data analysis, data management, and data-driven decision-making has been essential to the success of digital transformation initiatives.