The 2025 edition of the Africa Technology & Excellence (ATAEx) Awards lit up the continent as innovators, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders were celebrated for their groundbreaking contributions.

The Africa Tech Alliance Excellence (ATAEx) is a prestigious recognition platform that celebrates innovation, leadership, and digital excellence across Africa’s technology, fintech, telecommunications, amongst other ecosystems.

Held as part of the Africa Tech Alliance Forum (AfriTECH 5.0), the ATAEx Awards honour individuals, organisations, and initiatives that are redefining Africa’s digital future through creativity, resilience, and impact.

Each award recipient is celebrated not only for their achievements but also for their vision, ethical leadership, and commitment to leveraging technology for Africa’s sustainable development.

The ATAEx Awards continue to amplify Africa’s boldest innovators, the thinkers, builders, and change-makers shaping the continent’s digital independence in the AI era.

ATAEx Man of the Year 2025 – Prof. Obadare Peter Adewale

Celebrated for his unmatched contributions to Africa’s digital trust and cybersecurity landscape, Prof. Obadare Peter Adewale emerged as the ATAEx Man of the Year 2025; a recognition of his leadership, innovation, and lifelong commitment to advancing the continent’s digital transformation agenda.

As the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Digital Encode Limited, Prof. Obadare has consistently demonstrated excellence in digital security, governance, and risk compliance.

His pioneering achievements include being the first PECB Certified Data Protection Officer in Nigeria, first EC-Council Licensed Penetration Tester in Africa, and first Global PECB Certified Digital Transformation Officer.

ATAEx Technology Personality of the Year Award 2025 – Mr. George Agu

George Agu stands as a distinguished technology leader and entrepreneur whose impact on Africa’s digital transformation spans over two decades and five countries.

His visionary leadership, deep technical expertise, and passion for innovation have positioned him among the continent’s most respected voices in the IT and business landscape.

ATAEx Digital Transformation Leadership Award 2025 – Muhammed Rudman

Muhammed Rudman is a visionary technology leader and the pioneer Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), Nigeria’s first and only neutral Internet Exchange Point.

Before leading IXPN, Rudman worked with Galaxy IT & T Limited, where he oversaw major projects including rural telephony deployments, broadband wireless networks, and VSAT-based Wide Area Networks across Nigeria and parts of West Africa.

Under his leadership, IXPN has evolved into a vital Internet infrastructure hub, improving connectivity, reducing bandwidth costs, and strengthening local Internet traffic exchange

ATAEx Fintech Leadership Personality of the Year 2025 – Dr. (Mrs.) Ebehijie Momoh

Dr. Momoh is a seasoned business executive and fintech leader currently serving as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of AfriGOPay Financial Services Ltd. (AFSL), a pioneering Nigerian company driving indigenous digital payment solutions.

Under her leadership, AfriGOPay has emerged as a key player in Africa’s payment landscape, providing secure, efficient, and locally relevant financial technology infrastructure that promotes inclusion and innovation.

ATAEx Lifetime Achievement Award in Data Centre Management (2025)

Engineer Ikechukwu Nnamani, CEO of Digital Realty (Nigeria), is a groundbreaker in Africa’s digital infrastructure landscape and a driving force behind Nigeria’s data centre evolution.

Through visionary leadership, he has built one of West Africa’s most interconnected facilities, a critical hub for Internet exchange and submarine cable interconnection.

ATAEx Cybersecurity Personality of the Year 2025 – Happiness Obioha

Happiness Obioha is a highly respected cybersecurity professional and technology entrepreneur, serving as the Chief Executive Officer of Tizel Cybersecurity, a fast-rising firm dedicated to protecting digital assets and strengthening cyber resilience across Africa.

With years of hands-on experience in information security, risk management, and digital forensics, she has distinguished herself as a thought leader and advocate for data protection, cyber awareness, and enterprise security transformation.

Spire Solutions, a leading value-added distributor of cybersecurity and digital transformation solutions in the Middle East and Africa (MEA), today announced a strategic distribution partnership with ADAMnetworks, a pioneering cybersecurity innovator specializing in Zero Trust Connectivity (ZTc).

This collaboration will bring ADAMnetworks’ groundbreaking adam:ONE® platform to enterprises, governments, and critical sectors across the region, revolutionizing cybersecurity by shifting from reactive defenses to proactive, AI-driven protection.

As cyber threats escalate in the MEA— with the number of overall ransomware groups active in the UAE increasing by 58 percent in 2024 and state-sponsored espionage targeting key industries like oil & gas, finance, and telecommunications—this partnership arrives at a pivotal moment.

ADAMnetworks’ ZTc technology, built on a “deny-by-default” philosophy, eliminates vulnerabilities at the network edge by using AI driven dynamic allowlisting to only verified connections.

This reduces the attack surface by more than 7,000:1, blocks command-and-control channels before they activate, and neutralizes phishing, data exfiltration, and shadow IT risks without requiring endpoint agents.

Integrated with DNSharmony® DNS intelligence aggregation, it combines multiple threat feeds for comprehensive, real-time protection against malware, trackers, and harmful content.

For the MEA region, where digital transformation is accelerating but legacy security models falter against sophisticated adversaries, this means unprecedented cyber resilience.

Organizations can now deploy device-agnostic, encryption-friendly solutions that support IoT, OT, and cloud environments seamlessly, ensuring compliance with evolving data privacy regulations like the UAE’s Federal Data Protection Law and Saudi Arabia’s PDPL.

By empowering over 800 channel partners through Spire’s extensive network, the partnership will accelerate secure adoption, protecting over 1,000 organizations and fostering a safer digital ecosystem.

Spire Solutions, renowned for its forward-thinking approach in scouting and integrating cutting-edge global technologies, discovered ADAMnetworks as a rising star in the Zero Trust space—unearthing a solution that perfectly aligns with the region’s unique cybersecurity challenges.

This visionary move not only underscores Spire’s commitment to innovation but also delivers immense value to the MEA market by introducing a scalable, proactive defense mechanism that transforms how organizations mitigate risks, enabling faster, more secure digital growth without compromising on performance or privacy.

“In an era where cyber threats don’t respect borders, the Middle East and Africa need solutions that anticipate and neutralize risks before they materialize,” says Sanjeev Walia, Founder and President of Spire Solutions.

“The consequences of the successful implementation of Zero Trust Connectivity has a huge effect on hardening the security posture of organizations that adopt it. ADAMnetworks and their adam:ONE® platform exemplifies our dedication to bringing niche, regionally relevant technologies to the forefront.

“This partnership isn’t just about distribution—it’s about empowering our clients with a game-changing tool that builds true cyber-resilience, safeguarding everything from smart cities to financial hubs as they embrace the future of connected everything.”

David Redekop, Founder and CEO of ADAMnetworks, added: “Zero Trust Connectivity is about more than security; it’s about stewarding technology that protects human potential in a digital world.

“We’re thrilled to join forces with Spire Solutions, whose deep MEA expertise, innovative scouting prowess, and robust partner ecosystem will amplify adam:ONE®’s impact.

“Together, we’ll deliver proactive defenses to neutralize attacks before it is even possible to detect them.”

The partnership launches immediately, with Spire Solutions handling distribution, sales enablement, and facilitating managed services for adam:ONE® across its 10+ country footprint.

Early adopters in sectors like banking, utilities, and telcos can expect tailored deployments of their enterprise suites with Zero Trust Connectivity enabled by AdaptiveAI™, ReflexAI™ and high-availability options.

Muhammed Rudman, Managing Director of the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), has underscored the urgent need for Nigeria to strengthen its local traffic exchange ecosystem, describing it as a strategic national imperative for speed, security, and digital economic expansion.

Speaking during a presentation at the African Tech Alliance (AfriTECH) Forum on Thursday last week, Rudman explained that local traffic exchange, where ISPs, content providers, and networks exchange data within Nigeria rather than routing it through international paths, remains the backbone of a modern, efficient internet economy.

He noted that Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) enable this by ensuring that data generated in Nigeria stays within the country, leading to faster connectivity, better user experience, and significant cost savings.

Rudman emphasised that the most visible benefit for users is dramatically reduced latency.

According to him, internet traffic routed abroad often travels through undersea cables to Europe before returning to Nigeria, resulting in delays between 150ms and 300ms. However, with local peering at IXPN, latency drops to as low as 5ms to 10ms.

“This is the difference between a frozen video call and a smooth one,” Rudman said. “For real-time applications like gaming, fintech transactions, and cloud services, milliseconds matter.”

He added that lower latency boosts productivity for businesses and enhances the performance of modern digital tools.

Rudman listed data sovereignty as another critical benefit of keeping traffic local, and explained that when Nigerian data is forced to travel through foreign infrastructures, it exposes the country to unnecessary security and surveillance risks.

“Local traffic exchange keeps Nigerian data protected under Nigerian laws and reduces exposure to foreign interception,” he stated.

He also stressed that maintaining local routing is essential for continuity during cable cuts. “If an undersea cable fails, locally hosted services, such as .ng websites and email, continue running normally,” he added.

Citing a major milestone, Rudman revealed that the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria has recently crossed 2 terabits per second (Tbps) in peak domestic traffic, and described this as evidence of the rapid localisation of Nigerian internet traffic, with some members already achieving up to 70% traffic localisation.

According to him, this growth has saved the Nigerian economy hundreds of millions of dollars in international bandwidth costs, positioned Lagos as a digital hub for West Africa, and provided the foundation for local innovation in fintech, media, cloud services, and more.

“A fast, cheap, and reliable internet is the platform upon which new digital businesses are built,” he said.

Rudman urged policymakers, telecom operators, businesses, and global content providers to deepen their commitment to local peering, and recommended that government recognises IXPs as critical national infrastructure, mandate public-sector peering, and create policies that incentivise local hosting.

He further noted that while Telecoms and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) peer more aggressively to strengthen the ecosystem, content providers such as Google, Meta, Netflix, and the rest, deploy more local caches.

While urging businesses to choose ISPs that participate in local exchange and adopt Nigeria’s online identity such as .ng, the IXPN Chief Executive posited that local traffic exchange is no longer a technical luxury but a cornerstone of Nigeria’s digital sovereignty, economic competitiveness, and national security.

“Local traffic exchange is the foundation for a faster, safer, and more sovereign digital future,” he said.

The fifth edition of the Africa Tech Alliance Forum, (AfriTECH 5.0), which held on Thursday, November 13, 2025, at the Oriental Hotel, Lagos, had as its theme, “AI & Sovereign Tech: Building Africa’s Digital Independence.”