A Kerry technology firm chaired by former tánaiste Dick Spring, has been recognised as a “technology pioneer” by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The annual awards, which were announced in Switzerland yesterday, recognise companies whose technology has the “promise of significantly impacting the way business and society operate”.

Previous winners include Google, Twitter, Foursquare, Spotify, OpenDNS and Brightcove.

The award, which comes with automatic membership of the WEF, will give Altobridge access to some of the biggest companies, governments and regulators in the world, said chief executive Mike Fitzgerald.

“We will also be joining a really exciting group of peers,” said Mr Fitzgerald.

Headquartered in Tralee, Altobridge has developed low power mobile phone base stations that can connect isolated communities to the network. Last week it announced it had won a contract with Asiacell, to enhance its coverage in rural Iraq.

Mr Fitzgerald will represent Altobridge at the WEF annual meeting of the new champions 2011 in Dalian, China, later this month. He said the forum’s focus on emerging markets meant there was a lot of opportunities for Altobridge.

“Most people are aware of the WEF because of its conference in Davos every year, but it does a lot of research with some of the biggest universities and firms like Booz Co,” said Mr Fitzgerald. “For example they have information on competitiveness which we could tap into and would really help us selling in that market.”

A major challenge for Altobridge is convincing mobile operators that it is possible to “cost-effectively get the unconnected connected”. Mr Fitzgerald says rather than spending $250,000 on a single traditional telecoms tower, operators can deploy five of Altobridge’s lite-site, which he says more cost effective in part because it is solar powered.

While Altobridge has had some success in the Asian market, Mr Fitzgerald said it had more recently begun to win contracts in Africa. It has opened offices in Ghana and Kenya and hired the former chief financial officer of an African mobile operator to run its operations on the continent.

“You need a local because it is a very difficult market to break into and understand,” said Mr Fitzgerald.

This year 25 companies were recognised as technology pioneers by the WEF in the areas of life sciences-health, energy and environment, and information technologies-telecommunications-new media. The list includes Diagnostics for All, Attero Recycling, Dropbox, Lending Club, Joule Unlimited and Cloudflare.