Element Blue Receives 2016 IBM Beacon Award for Outstanding Community Service

Houston, TEXAS, February 18, 2016 — Element Blue™, a leading IT consulting firm and solution provider of IBM software products, today announced that it has been awarded a prestigious IBM Beacon Award for Outstanding Community Service for its SensorInsight® platform solution.

Each year, this honor is awarded to a select number of IBM Business Partners who have delivered exceptional solutions to drive business value and transform the way clients and industries do business in the future. The 2016 awards recognize achievements across a wide-range of solution areas, including IBM Watson, cloud and analytics that are helping to bring clients into the cognitive era.

“We are honored to have received the Beacon Award for Outstanding Community Service. Our solution is particularly important to us because it was based on our new Internet of Things (IoT)platform, SensorInsight®, and is deployed in East Africa for Oxfam,” said Steven Gerhardt,Managing Partner and CEO at Element Blue.

Element Blue’s Community Service Award entry is focusedonits work withOxfam International, a global organization working to right the wrongs of poverty, hunger and injustice. Oxfam saves lives, develops long-term solutions to poverty, and campaigns for social change. In Africa, Oxfam worked alongside local communities to expand the network of independent water points across Northern Kenya and Ethiopia.

Lack of access to safe, reliable water is an ongoing problem in East Africa. With thousands of water points in place, Oxfam needed a system for monitoring and maximizing the efficiency of the water lifecycle. Providing visibility and trend analysis with SensorInsight, it allows NGOs and government agencies to respond more quickly to fluctuations and situations with the water supply.

The Oxfam project is an example of how SensorInsight® with IBM’s integrated software greatly improved aspects of water and resource management.

Vincent Njorge,Element Blue’s Managing Director, Africa accepted the award Wednesday during the 2016 IBM PartnerWorld Leadership Conference in Orlando, FL.

The Beacon Awards are an integral part of IBM’s Business Partner recognition program. Announced at the IBM PartnerWorld Leadership Conference in Orlando, Florida, United States, the winners are selected by a panel of expert judges consisting of IBM executives, industry analysts and members of the press. IBM’s Beacon Awards recognize Business Partners who have demonstrated business excellence in delivering IBM-based solutions to clients around the world to drive transformation and business growth. This year’s awards recognized Business Partner achievements across 24 award categories.

The 2016 award is Element Blue’s fourth Beacon.

For more information about the IBM Beacon Awards, including details on the winners and finalists, please visit:https://www-304.ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/ContentHandler/pw_com_prb_beacon.

To learn more about IBM PartnerWorld, a comprehensive program that offers marketing and sales resources, training, certification and technical support to help create new revenue and market opportunities for IBM Business Partners, visit http://www.ibm.com/partnerworld.