Profile Awards 2009 Award Winners
Judges Comments

Category: ENERGY
Category Winner:
Hillary Erasmus for the magazine entry, Solar water heater shoot-out in Urban Green File

Judges comments:
This entry, which addresses specific issues related to a national energy crisis in South Africa, is extensively researched and covers many interesting and relevant angles to the energy issue. It poses the problem and provides technology-based responses to numerous alternative options in a lucid and informative way. It offers what is arguably the definitive response to what many South African households are grappling with regarding alternatives to Eskom's energy offering. It is well sourced, exhaustive and presents a quality piece of journalism. Sound and exhaustive research is honoured in this award.

Merit Award:
Kirsten Kelly for the magazine entry, Diminishing resources revolutionise hot asphalt practices in Construction World

Judges comments:
The author brings life to a largely hidden industry showing how the current global economic slump has ensured that environmentally friendly technologies and policies have become extremely important to the bitumen industry. Well researched and richly soured, the article provides a look into an innovative approach to sustainability using reclaimed asphalt. The author maintains interest in an obscure technology through an engaging writing style and exhaustive research.

Merit Award:
Dr Mohamed El Khayat for the magazine entry, Renewable energy in Al- Kahraba Al- Arabeya

Judges comments:
The writer addresses specialised readers of an electricity magazine in five issues about renewable energy. From an international perspective he moves smoothly into regional and local approaches. This huge research effort is presented in a simple scientific and journalistic style. Grasp of subject matter and the ability to unbundled complex technology is evident throughout.

Category: INDUSTRY
Category Winner:
Ahmed Saleh for the magazine entry, Iron...who buys it? in Al- Ahram El- Ektisady

Judges comments:
The entry is a comprehensive review of the iron industry in Egypt, revealing everything from key technologies used in the industry to the industrial players, importers and local and foreign workers engaged there. It presents a panoramic overview with facts, documents and figures, opinions, the crisis facing the industry and the technical and economical solutions available. It is clear that the journalist had done significant research in depth. He then presents his findings using various journalistic techniques from investigative, news and analytical reporting to good old-fashioned interviews. A compelling piece of journalism.

Merit Award:
Rollo Dickson for the magazine entry, Who runs SA: President Zuma or the taxis? in Truck & Bus

Judges comments:
This article presents the problem of the minibus taxi industry in South Africa and examines how other major world cities have dealt with the challenge of moving people quickly, safely and cost effectively using modern technologies. It makes a powerful case for following global precedent in the transport industry.

Merit Award:
Sara Wild for the newspaper entry, Looking to the future by going back to nature in The Weekender

Judges comments:
This article examines unusual aspects of the natural environment and suggests how industry might use Nature as a model for new products and solutions. The article suggests 'biomimicry' should use Nature's ingenious designs in developing advanced and sustainable technologies.

Category: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Category Winner:
Reuben Goldberg for his radio interview series on Classic FM

Judges comments:
This award is made for consistently high quality reportage over a wide variety of radio programmes from computer ticket redesign of websites to self-service banking to paying your traffic fines via your mobile phone while pulling into a roadblock. The reporter displays sound knowledge of the topics and technologies and reports with a well-developed sense of humour. The reports work to bring technology to a wide audience in a way that it is readily understandable.

Merit Award:
Dr Samir Mahmoud for the newspaper entry, University students use technology to develop their society in Al-Ahram Al- Masaay and online on the Elaph website

Judges comments:
The entry reveals how students in various Egyptian universities were able to develop their local communities using various technologies. The writer pulls personalised human interest stories together and presents them in an attractive analytical style. These stories could have been presented separately, but pulling them all together in this entry gives the technology far greater meaning.

Merit Award:
Lezette Engelbrecht for the online article, The e-book finds its feet on ITWeb

Judges comments:
The judges suggested a merit award should go to this writer for the extensive research displayed in the story and the multiple use of local sources in writing about an imported technology. Localising the introduction of new technologies gives the story considerably more credibility than merely quoting vendor comments.

Category: HEALTHCARE
Category Winner:
The Healthcare category winner was adjudged a tie this year as the judges found it impossible to choose between two top-class entries, one in print and the other in television. The category prize will thus be shared between two entrants:
- Television: Joy Summers for the television entry Water that aired on Carte Blanche, M-Net; and
- Nasser Khalifa of Sabah Al- Khair for the three-part magazine campaign, The impossible confrontation between patients and the pharmaceutical companies

Judges comments:
Joy Summers has produced an excellent programme on a topic of great national importance, namely the deteriorating quality of available water in South Africa. This production is of the highest technical quality with extensive inputs from a variety of sources. It is topical, thought-provoking and lively and is a tribute to the tenacity of the team that produced it.

Judges comments:
Nasser Khalifa's campaign shows that the journalist is well rooted in the society to grasp all the angles of the problem, addressing the technology, social, and political aspects of the issue. He interviews relevant sources and uses statistics well. The juxtaposition of an ironic writing style and scientific facts provides a compelling reading experience. The journalist has excellent analytical ability and a great way of relating science to peoples' lives.

Merit Award:
Hebatalla Abdel Hamid, for the newspaper entry, Initiative to encourage electronic healthcare in Egypt in Alam Rakamy

Judges comments:
This entry is an excellent example of a comprehensive newspaper campaign. It highlight the problem of poor patients living in remote areas far from major urban centres and presents a complete technological solution. Technology is not presented as a luxury solution, but rather a practical one. This is an excellent example of one of the neglected functions of journalism which is to play a developmental role.

Category: STUDENT ENTRY
Category Winner:
Azwihangwisi Mufamadi, Daniel Epstein, Leila Dougan and Matthew Von Abo from the School of Journalism & Media Studies at Rhodes University for the television entry Hypertension

Judges comments:
The entry examines the 'silent epidemic' of hypertension which affects a quarter of South Africa's population. It examines the work of a Grahamstown health worker and humanised it through profiles her patients. In suggesting education is the best cure, this entry provides a poignant glimpse into the world of the suffering poor and suggests that technology, for all its benefits, can only go so far in an environment in which the cost of technology is sometimes beyond reach.

OVERALL WINNER:
This year's overall winner was chosen from a group of outstanding category winners during a Profile year in which qualitatively and quantitatively there has been a noticeable leap forward. The judges' selection of an overall winner came down to the quality and depth of research that went into the winning entry. This year's overall winner truly honours journalistic research at its best. The overall winner is Hillary Erasmus.