The Leading Lights awards judging is underway.

Today our editors have agreed that we need a little more time to consider the volume of entries, follow up on some missing details and solidify our shortlist of finalists for this year's contest. We'll announce the finalists for the Light Reading's Leading Lights awards on Friday, October 14, 2022.

The Leading Lights is Light Reading's flagship awards program, returning for its 18th year to recognize the industry's top companies and their executives for outstanding achievements in next-generation communications technology, applications, services, strategies and innovation.

Once our finalists are revealed, we'll start the second round of judging with input from industry analysts and experts covering the communications industry.

The list of judges lined up to weigh in on this year's finalists includes Dell'Oro Group's Jeff Heynen; Tantra Analyst's Prakash Sangam; our Informa colleagues James Crawshaw, Roz Roseboro, Pablo Tomasi and Jaimie Lenderman; Rosenblatt Securities' Mike Genovese; Vertical Systems Group's Erin Dunne and our Heavy Reading colleagues Sterling Perrin, Jim Hodges, Jennifer Clark and Gabriel Brown.

The Leading Lights winners will be announced via a special streaming video on Friday, December 2, 2022. You can register to see the awards presentation first or view it on www.lightreading.com later. We'll celebrate the finalists and winners at a cocktail party in New York City on Tuesday, December 6.

— Phil Harvey, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading