The Innovator Trust's Women in Tech (WIT) Awards, now one of the country's more established platforms for recognising women-led ICT small businesses, return on 24 November 2026 with free virtual registration open to women across the country.

The awards recognise founders who have come up through the Innovator Trust's incubation programmes its Start-up Enterprise Development, Youth Entrepreneurship, and Supplier Development tracks and have used that support to digitise, monetise and scale their businesses. The event pairs the recognition with a speaker programme that has, in past years, featured figures including former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, former Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, businesswoman Irene Charnley, Vodacom's Tsatsi Mthimunye and Cisco Africa's Charmaine Houvet.

"WIT celebrates evidence and action. We see it in growing businesses, new jobs and technology that solves very real problems in our country," said Tashline Jooste, CEO of the Innovator Trust. "Through this year's theme, Tech Believers, WIT and its partners recognise the women who have backed their ideas with action and call on the market to back proven ability with real opportunity."

For Jooste, the value of the awards extends beyond the ceremony itself visibility of this kind can shape who gets remembered when contracts are awarded or partnerships are formed. An award doesn't replace access to capital or procurement opportunities, she noted, but it can help build the credibility that opens doors to them.

This year's theme, Tech Believers, points to a pattern common among the founders WIT recognises: they tend to back their ideas well before the market does, putting in the work while others are still weighing whether to invest. The Trust argues the broader ecosystem investors, corporates, mentors needs to meet that conviction with real capital, contracts and support.

WIT has built its reputation over several years by tracking not just individual success stories but the wider, slower-moving barriers still facing women trying to scale ICT businesses in South Africa.