Nine Qatari projects have been nominated to the third phase of the ninth edition of the World Summit on Information Society Prizes 2020 (WSIS2020), sponsored by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) announced yesterday.
The nine Qatari projects are “SafeSpace” under “C5: Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs”, “Open Data” portal under “C7: ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life: E-Science”, the “Digital Transformation of Small and Medium Business Enterprises” under “C7: ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life: E-Business”, the “Government Media Analysis Service” under “C9: Media”, the “National Digitisation Project” under “C6: Enabling environment”, the “Better Connections” under “C7: ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life: E-Environment”, the “Multi Languages Electronic Labor Contract System” under “C8: Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content”, “Metrash 2” under “C7: ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life: E-Government”, and the “Centralised Connectivity in the Schools Network” under “C2: Information and communication infrastructure: an essential foundation for the Information Society.”
The contest has 18 categories. Five projects with the highest number of votes in each of the 18 categories will be identified and referred to final evaluation from a panel of experts from the ITU. The experts will select one winning project in each category.
The MoTC has requested the public and all those who are interested to vote online for the nine projects via the link https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/stocktaking/prizes/2020/. The deadline for voting is January 24, 2020. Voters should vote in all categories and for only one project under each category.
The WSIS Prizes is the unique global platform to identify and showcase success stories in the implementation of the WSIS 18 Action Lines and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The WSIS Prizes contest was developed in response to requests from the WSIS stakeholders to create an effective mechanism to evaluate projects and activities that leverage the power of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to advance sustainable development.
The 18 winning projects will be recognised at the WSIS Forum 2020, which will be held on April 6-9, 2020 in Geneva, Switzerland. The WSIS Prizes contest is open for all WSIS stakeholders including governments, businesses, civil society, international organisations, academic institutions and others.