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The ICT Agency of Sri Lanka attracts international attention for creating the world's best e-Content. The multimedia product "Government Information Center (GIC)" has won the World Summit Award (WSA 09) with a single, electronic, trilingual (Sinhala, Tamil and English) knowledge base of 1,600 services available to citizens from 77 key government organizations. For more information visit the homepage www.gic.gov.lk. With this, the GIC has approximately outrun 20.000 other products and projects from 157 countries participating in the 4th edition of the WSA, the United Nations based contest for e-content and creativity in the Information Society.
The global contest on creativity generated content is taking place every two years as a follow-on activity to the UN World Summit on Information Society. This year 545 national finalists from the United Nations Member States were selected by 34 eminent e-Content experts in New Delhi.
The submitted projects were nominated in one of the eight WSA categories to receive global acknowledgement as the world's Best in e-Content. Australia, Austria, Canada and New Zealand dominate this years winners list.
"In contrast to mass TV and newspapers, the new media do not concentrate in one country or one region; we do not see a digital Hollywood or digital Fleet street. Rather, the most interesting e-Contents come from smaller markets, and there from smaller players.
They appear to be much more in touch with users and their communities. Local content, not global, triumphs in terms of quality" concludes from the Jury proceedings Peter A. Bruck, WSA Chairman. The WSA is a global not-for-profit activity promoting the most outstanding achievements as a flagship partnership initiative of the UN's Global Alliance for ICT and Development and in close collaboration with UNESCO, UNIDO, ISOC and a worldwide network of Partners.
"The GIC has handled over two million telephone calls in the last two years during which it has been functioning - averaging over 1,500 calls a day which goes up to 2,500 calls when we have a media campaign." Reshan Dewapura, Chief Operating Officer of the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) which maintains the Government Information Centre, said.
"The public can call 1919 to access the service run by the GIC which operates from 8 am till 8 pm and is staffed by officers who can handle queries in all three languages, Sinhala, Tamil and English," Wasantha Deshapriya, Director Re-engineering Government said.
WSA was started as an Austrian initiative in the framework of the United Nations World Summit on Information Society in 2003. Today, it is the world's leading contest for excellence and creativity and e-Content production and a global hub dedicated to closing the digital content divide and narrowing the content gap between different regions of the world. Key sponsors of the WSA include the global Internet Society and Indigo Brainmedia - the leading and most innovative digital magazine from Latin America, which won the WSA in the e-Entertainment category in 2007 and since then entered into a long term visionary as the main supporter and sponsor.
The WSA 09 Winners' Gala, WSA Winners Conference and Exhibition will take place in Monterrey, Mexico, September 2-5, 09 in collaboration with the UN GAID's Global Forum. |
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