London, 25th October 2012 – Judges of the first-annual Tech Trailblazers Awards are busy finalizing the shortlists across the nine categories: big data, cloud, emerging markets, infosecurity, mobile, networking, storage, sustainable IT and virtualization. The awards program has been an outstanding success so far, attracting more than 100 entries from enterprise technology startups across all five continents.

Around 80% of the entrants hail from the traditional home of the information technology startup, Silicon Valley. However, there are representatives from all continents, including entries from Taiwan, India, Singapore, South Africa, the UK, Ireland, Norway, Costa Rica, and, of course, the US. Regardless of their country of origin, all entrants share the spirit of tech entrepreneurialism.

Steve O'Donnell, chairman of the judging panel and blogger at www.TheHotAisle.com, commented, "The quality and quantity of entries has given the judges an enormous challenge to come up with a shortlist. Across the board, we are seeing not only sector winners of the Tech Trailblazers Awards, but great companies and products that will shape the future direction of the industry, and for some, the potential of going all the way to a future IPO."

The shortlists will be tweeted out next week. A public vote will open at the end of October, once the shortlisted companies submit their videos or Prezis to support their entries.

The IT public will be voting until voting closes in early December and the winners will be announced later that month.

About the Tech Trailblazers Awards www.techtrailblazers.com

Tech Trailblazers is a new concept in awards, designed explicitly for smaller businesses and startups that are less than five years old and at C-series funding or below. The awards have low barriers to entry and prizes that not only recognize startup innovation, but also proactively help startups grow their businesses with exclusive coaching, mentoring and development from VCs and leading CTOs as well as an estimated prize fund worth in excess of $1m. The awards seek to recognize true innovators in the following enterprise technology and other areas:

Big Data Trailblazers

Cloud Trailblazers

Emerging Markets Trailblazers

Mobile Technology Trailblazers

Networking Trailblazers

Security Trailblazers

Storage Trailblazers

Sustainable IT Trailblazers

Virtualization Trailblazers

For more information, please email us at [email protected], follow us on Twitter @techtrailblaze or via the hashtag #TTAwards, or visit us on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/company/tech-trailblazers-awards.