This is to invite participation of institutions, organizations or individuals in WSA 2007 contest for the best e-content & multimedia applications for development. The registration is open up to 19th of this month, July 2007.
The World Summit Award (WSA) is a global initiative to select and promote the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications, started in 2003 in the framework of the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). This is done through national contests, a global contest, held every 2 years, and numerous content-focused national and international conferences and workshops. WSA is an invitation project and a global hub for everyone, who sees the crucial importance of excellent e-Content creation within the new Information Society. As of today, 168 countries are actively involved in WSA, Tanzania being one of them.
The first WSA contest was done in 2003, the second in 2005 and third is taking place this year 2007 (http://www.wsis-award.org). As the nomination process is being opened for this year’s award, we look keenly forward to valuable and enthusiastic participation of all and sundry who are connected to the ecosystem of ‘e-Content for Development’. We invite willful nominations from individual participants, organizations, individuals who are doing pioneering work in developing, creating and dissemination of digital content, be it online or offline for any kind of empowerment and development in daily walks of life as indicated in award categories below.
Award categories
1. e-Learning
Serving the needs of learners to acquire knowledge and skills for a complex and globalizing world; transforming schools, universities and other educational institutions through interactive, personalized and distributed learning resources; creating active e-learning communities and target models and solutions for corporate training, supporting first steps in multimedia.
2. e-Culture
Preserving and presenting cultural heritage in line with the challenges of the future; demonstrating valuable cultural assets clearly and informatively using state-of-the-art technology.
3. e-Science
Fostering global collaboration in key areas of science, and the next generation of infrastructure that will enable it; providing measures to promote and demonstrate scientific processes and make them accessible to citizens; scientific projects articulated through new media.
4. e-Government
Empowering citizens and serving public services clients; fostering quality and efficiency of information exchange and communication services in governmental and public administrative processes; strengthening participation of citizens in information society decision making.
5. e-Health
Developing the consumer-centered model of health care where stakeholders collaborate, utilizing ICT, including internet technologies to manage health issues as well as the health care system.
6. e-Business
Support and optimization of business processes; creation of new business models in ecommerce and m-commerce, business to business, business to consumers, internet security and other areas; supporting SME’s on the marketplace.
7. e-Entertainment
Supplying digitized entertainment products and services; entertaining the user in this world's variety of languages and its cultural diversity; supporting movement from one way to two-way, from single to multiple players, interactive entertainment and the synergy between analog and digital platforms.
8. Special Category: e-Inclusion
All measures supporting IT integration of the least developed countries into the Information Society. Reducing the "digital divide" and “content gap” between technology empowered and technology-excluded communities and groups, such as rural areas and women. Bridging society through multimedia.
All applicants will undergo the national level pre-selection process and a winner of each of these categories will be submitted to the WSA Global Contest 2007 which will be done in Croatia in September 2007 followed by Winners Gala in November 2007, Venice, Italy. The criteria to be applied both at national & global level is as indicated in contest rules below.
Contest rules
1. A WSA contest is open to any company, organization and individual active in the content industry (e- content and/or their applications) in any of the 168 participating countries(Tanzania is one of them).
2. There is no limitation regarding the platform of the applications.
3. All entries have to be complete products. No drafts, demonstrations or unfinished prototypes are accepted.
4. The release year of a project must be 2006 or 2007.
5. Producer must have the copyright permission for any pictures, sound, content etc. used fore the production of his application. Usage of all software should be legal.
6. The interface of the products can be in any of the United Nations official languages. All producer and project information shall be in English.
7. One product may be submitted only once. In case of multiple submissions by one organization, each product requires a separate registration.
8. All materials submitted become the property of the organizers and will not be returned. One copy of each submitted product will be archived for the record. No commercial use of this archive may or will be made.
9. Incomplete submissions and those not conforming to the WSA rules will be disqualified without any further notice. There is no possible legal recourse against such decisions.
10. Along with the completion of the registration, participants in the Award accept the rules, guidelines and Award criteria governing the WORLD SUMMIT AWARD.
11. Registration and submission of a product to the evaluation itself does in no way entitle it to any specific benefits. There is no possible legal recourse against the organizers.
12. Submitters are held responsible for the smooth functioning of their products.
Also in evaluating submissions the following criteria will be applied
1. Quality and comprehensiveness of content
2. Ease of use: functionality, navigation and orientation
3. Value added through interactivity and multimedia
4. Attractiveness of design (aesthetic value of graphics/audio)
5. Quality of craftsmanship (technical realization)
These criteria are tied to the concept of value added for users and e-contents for a purpose. Also e-contents should have strategic importance for the global development of the Information Society and Accessibility according to the WC3.
Please submit product details including contacts, category (one of 8 WSA Categories), summary, functionalities/content coverage, benefits/impact to society, platform of the product (online URL, offline CD/DVD/Video, mobile contents, Game platform, Interactive TV or Cross Media) and any other WSA contest related information at nfuka@udsm.ac.tz .
E.N.Nfuka
On behalf of UCC/National & WSA Expert Panel 2007
Note that there was an oversight at global organizing team and information to handle this contest for Tanzania came very late to a selected national WSA Expert, thus limited time given for registration and evaluation at the national level.
The World Summit Award (WSA) is a global initiative to select and promote the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications, started in 2003 in the framework of the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). This is done through national contests, a global contest, held every 2 years, and numerous content-focused national and international conferences and workshops. WSA is an invitation project and a global hub for everyone, who sees the crucial importance of excellent e-Content creation within the new Information Society. As of today, 168 countries are actively involved in WSA, Tanzania being one of them.
The first WSA contest was done in 2003, the second in 2005 and third is taking place this year 2007 (http://www.wsis-award.org). As the nomination process is being opened for this year’s award, we look keenly forward to valuable and enthusiastic participation of all and sundry who are connected to the ecosystem of ‘e-Content for Development’. We invite willful nominations from individual participants, organizations, individuals who are doing pioneering work in developing, creating and dissemination of digital content, be it online or offline for any kind of empowerment and development in daily walks of life as indicated in award categories below.
Award categories
1. e-Learning
Serving the needs of learners to acquire knowledge and skills for a complex and globalizing world; transforming schools, universities and other educational institutions through interactive, personalized and distributed learning resources; creating active e-learning communities and target models and solutions for corporate training, supporting first steps in multimedia.
2. e-Culture
Preserving and presenting cultural heritage in line with the challenges of the future; demonstrating valuable cultural assets clearly and informatively using state-of-the-art technology.
3. e-Science
Fostering global collaboration in key areas of science, and the next generation of infrastructure that will enable it; providing measures to promote and demonstrate scientific processes and make them accessible to citizens; scientific projects articulated through new media.
4. e-Government
Empowering citizens and serving public services clients; fostering quality and efficiency of information exchange and communication services in governmental and public administrative processes; strengthening participation of citizens in information society decision making.
5. e-Health
Developing the consumer-centered model of health care where stakeholders collaborate, utilizing ICT, including internet technologies to manage health issues as well as the health care system.
6. e-Business
Support and optimization of business processes; creation of new business models in ecommerce and m-commerce, business to business, business to consumers, internet security and other areas; supporting SME’s on the marketplace.
7. e-Entertainment
Supplying digitized entertainment products and services; entertaining the user in this world's variety of languages and its cultural diversity; supporting movement from one way to two-way, from single to multiple players, interactive entertainment and the synergy between analog and digital platforms.
8. Special Category: e-Inclusion
All measures supporting IT integration of the least developed countries into the Information Society. Reducing the "digital divide" and “content gap” between technology empowered and technology-excluded communities and groups, such as rural areas and women. Bridging society through multimedia.
All applicants will undergo the national level pre-selection process and a winner of each of these categories will be submitted to the WSA Global Contest 2007 which will be done in Croatia in September 2007 followed by Winners Gala in November 2007, Venice, Italy. The criteria to be applied both at national & global level is as indicated in contest rules below.
Contest rules
1. A WSA contest is open to any company, organization and individual active in the content industry (e- content and/or their applications) in any of the 168 participating countries(Tanzania is one of them).
2. There is no limitation regarding the platform of the applications.
3. All entries have to be complete products. No drafts, demonstrations or unfinished prototypes are accepted.
4. The release year of a project must be 2006 or 2007.
5. Producer must have the copyright permission for any pictures, sound, content etc. used fore the production of his application. Usage of all software should be legal.
6. The interface of the products can be in any of the United Nations official languages. All producer and project information shall be in English.
7. One product may be submitted only once. In case of multiple submissions by one organization, each product requires a separate registration.
8. All materials submitted become the property of the organizers and will not be returned. One copy of each submitted product will be archived for the record. No commercial use of this archive may or will be made.
9. Incomplete submissions and those not conforming to the WSA rules will be disqualified without any further notice. There is no possible legal recourse against such decisions.
10. Along with the completion of the registration, participants in the Award accept the rules, guidelines and Award criteria governing the WORLD SUMMIT AWARD.
11. Registration and submission of a product to the evaluation itself does in no way entitle it to any specific benefits. There is no possible legal recourse against the organizers.
12. Submitters are held responsible for the smooth functioning of their products.
Also in evaluating submissions the following criteria will be applied
1. Quality and comprehensiveness of content
2. Ease of use: functionality, navigation and orientation
3. Value added through interactivity and multimedia
4. Attractiveness of design (aesthetic value of graphics/audio)
5. Quality of craftsmanship (technical realization)
These criteria are tied to the concept of value added for users and e-contents for a purpose. Also e-contents should have strategic importance for the global development of the Information Society and Accessibility according to the WC3.
Please submit product details including contacts, category (one of 8 WSA Categories), summary, functionalities/content coverage, benefits/impact to society, platform of the product (online URL, offline CD/DVD/Video, mobile contents, Game platform, Interactive TV or Cross Media) and any other WSA contest related information at nfuka@udsm.ac.tz .
E.N.Nfuka
On behalf of UCC/National & WSA Expert Panel 2007
Note that there was an oversight at global organizing team and information to handle this contest for Tanzania came very late to a selected national WSA Expert, thus limited time given for registration and evaluation at the national level.
