Worlds Best Practice

Worlds Best Practice No.3 September 2003 Mama Samassekou °'" '"'R WY ADAMA SAMASSEKOU PrepCom President welcomes WSA PrepCom President Mama Samass4kou welcomed the initiative to make e- content a key aspect of the WSIS. In a conversation with the Head of the Austrian PrepCom Delegation, Walter Lichem, and WSA Board Chairman, Peter A. Bruck, President Samassokou said: «The World Summit Award gives expression in a very concrete way to the hopes of people to use the IS technologies for something good. It is also a most important means to allow the cultural identities of all nations to be communicated in the Summit Process*. «We have talked much about the cultural dimensions of the Information Society in the course of the World Summit preparations. The WSA makes a clear statement that richness and diversity can be develo- ped and that all in the South and North can benefit from each other when contents are exchanged in an open manner* added Mr. Samassokou. The PrepCom President indicated that he might take the opportunity in upcoming talks with UNESCO officials to stress the potential of the WSA for this UN organization. Adama Samass€kou has a distinguished career in Mali, Africa and on the global stage. He is Resident of the African Academy of Languages, former Minister of Education of Mali (1993-2000). world summit d The best in e-Content and Creativity EMINENT EXPERTS AT WORK THE WSA ATTRACTS ATTENTION WORLDWIDE The success of the WSA 03 strongly relies on the effort and support of the national eminent experts in each of the 136 participating countries. The main task of an elected expert is to select and propose eight, in his/her opinion, best practice examples in e- content Er creativity from his/her country. The selection is to be made according to eight WSA categories and to the selection guidelines, provi- ded by the WSA office. According to the reports from the countries, most experts established nation-wide and WSA GRAND JURY IN DUBAI nation-spanning pre-selection con- tests with high level juries to select and suggest the best practice e-con- tent products of their country to be nominated to the WSA Grand Jury meeting in Dubai, October 17-21. All products elected by the WSA Grand Jury will be presented at the ICT-4D Platform at the WSIS in Geneva, December 9 — 13 and honoured by the WSA High Patrons such as Austrian Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Sch0ssel at the WSA Showcase Event on December 10. Strategic Cooperation with Dubai Media City and Dubai Internet City Following the strategic goal to esta- blish a true global community for the World Summit Award (WSA), the WSA office is happy to announce a strate- gic cooperation with Dubai Media City (DMC) and Dubai Internet City (DIC), both located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. DMC and DIC will support the WSA with major financial and value-in-kind contributions, opening the door to hold the Grand Jury of the WSA in Dubai. 40 experts from coun- tries all over the world are invited to participate in panels being held from the 17th until the 21st of October in Dubai. The cooperation between the WSA and DIC/DMC will cover the areas: • planning and realisation of an «Arabic Content Village* in Geneva, 2003 • the upcoming «Content Road Show* in 2004 • scope to become an award provider for the final event in Tunis, 2005 •mirroring the WSA in the Middle East and beyond post 2004/05 The Dubai Media City creates and markets world class enabling services for the media industry. It provides an environment for more than 780 media companies, amongst others CNN, BMG or SONY. The Dubai Internet City offers space for more than 550 companies, e.g. Microsoft, Oracle or IBM, and is designed to sup- port the business development of ICT companies. more information on the World Summit Award www.wsis-awarip.org EFTA00578387 «The World Summit Award is a great vehicle to promote creativity in digital content and encourage interactive media-makers to push new boundaries with new visions» Ted Baracos - Commercial Director MILIA NEW WSA BOARD MEMBER: CHRISTINE MAXWELL WSA Board of Directors enlarged by WSA-136 COUNTRIES TAKE PART nomination from the Internet Society Bosnia-Herzegovina joined in WSA The Internet Society (ISOC) has nomi- nated Trustee Emeritus Ms. Christine Maxwell to work on the Board of Directors of WSA. Ms. Maxwell who is working from France and USA (California) joined the Board at its meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia on September 4-5, 2003. Lynn St.Amour, President Er CEO of the Internet Society writes: WSA is an important effort and we are plea- sed to be able to play a role*. Peter A. Bruck, WSA Board Chairman, expressed the delight about the nomination: "Ms. Maxwell is one of the true pioneers of e-content and her record in electronic publishing goes back to the cradle times of the intemet. As the co-founder of the Magellan online directory in 1993, Ms. Maxwell has created one of the first most successful, truly internatio- nal search engines and quality con- tent focussed directory sites on the internet. This is exactly what the WSA is all about: creating transparency in terms of content quality and showca- sing the diversity and richness of e- content from around the world, Currently, Ms. Maxwell is a Senior Partner of the Institute for Scientific Simulation (ISS), based in Monterey, California, where she is continuing her pioneering and innovative work in the development of internet content architectures and intemet publishing. ISS provides Internet-based consul- ting services and infuses internet technologies into commercial and government enterprises. Ms. Maxwell is also focusing her rese- arch, publishing and internet experti- se on creating new web-based publis- hing and knowledge transfer proces- ses for high value intellectual proper- ty over the internet. The Internet Society is a professional membership society with more than 150 organiza- tions and 16,000 individual members in over 180 countries. It provides lea- dership in addressing issues that con- front the future of the intemet, and is the organization home for the groups responsible for internet infrastructure standards, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). The Internet Society acts not only as a glo- bal clearinghouse for internet infor- mation and education, but also as a facilitator and coordinator of internet- related initiatives around the world. : M — • wwwlsoc I= oig CROATIA: OPEN PROCESS RUN BY INTERNET INSTITUTE Croatia's Internet Institute has taken the participation of their President, Mr. Lugaric, as WSA Eminent Expert Panel Member very seriously. Natalija Gojkovic from the Internet Institut (ITI) writes: "In order to ensure that no valuable e-content Er e-creativity pro- duct/project from Croatia is missed in the selection process, we have: • provided detailed coverage of WSA 2003 on our official internet pages and on our portal for development prototype • issued an invitation to all IT active or IT concerned in Croatia to nominate an e-producVproject that in their opi- nion represents best practice in Croatia. This invitation has been published in the majority of Croatian e-media. We have also created an online nomination tool on our internet The number of countries participating in the WSA 03 process is still rising. While Eminent Experts from some countries have already finished their selection of finalists, other countries continue to nominate their experts. Last country to do so is Bosnia- Herzegovina. Thanks to the assistance of the Natalija Gojkovic and the Internet Institut ITI, the Chief Editor of Bosnian Info Magazine, Mr. Dragisa Marek was nominated. Mr. Market has extensive insight in Bosnian e- content market including web, CD, DVD and other electronic media. The nomination process for Macedonia is still under way and might be comple- ted in time for the nomination of fina- lists for the Dubai Grand Jury meeting in October. Content portal to present croatias nominees and finalists of WSA site to facilitate the nomination pro- cess • we have sent out an e-mail concer- ning WSA 2003 and the nomination info to all our contacts in Croatia • we have directly contacted several experts that we believe are outstan- ding in the field of IT in Croatia to soli- cit contribution of their expert opinion before the final selection.* Ms. Gojkovic adds: «We also plan to publish on our internet pages all the projects that applied for the nomina- tion, the results of the nomination process and continue to cover the WSA process as it unfolds. In case that a Croatian project receives an award we will cover it extensively on our Web Site* L.. • vAwthr-gateway.orgfen ra • vAwa.gateway.hr EFTA00578388 BANGLADESH Already over 60 entries for WSA Mr. Md. Akteruzzaman, President of the Bangladesh Multimedia Accnriation and Member of the WSA Expert Panel reports the nomination of a top-class jury board to select the best e-con- tents from Bangladesh. More than 60 product entries have been collected so far, which is due to the very suc- cessful PR-work of the Bangladesh Multimedia Association, which an- nounced the WSA in all leading news- papers and TV-channels. SWISS FINALISTS: 4 CATEGORIES DECIDED SUDAN Sucessfull press campaign for WSA Another report reaches us from Mr. Izzeldin Osman, WSA expert and President Emeritus of the Sudan University of Science and Technolgy who started a publicity campaign with advertisements in three major new- spapers announcing the WSA to com- panies and content creators in the Sudan. Mr. Osman set up a commitee of experts which will recommend the country's best product in each catego- ry of the WSA. Seven experts involved in selection WSA Eminent Expert Roland Grunder, also Secretary General of the Swiss Multimedia Association, reports that selecting the finalists from Switz- erland seems at first an impossible task, but which becomes more and more interesting as the process gets under way. Says Grunder: «We asked seven of the most well-known profes- sionals from the various sectors to make their suggestions and I was sur- prised how much their judgements were converging! We already have settled in the categories of e-culture, e-learning, e-government and e-scien- ce and we intend to finish the process by the end of the week." SwissMedia is Switzerland's national ICT and mul- BUTHAN: WEB CAMPAIGN timedia association. The association seeks to regroup and defend the inter- ests of all enterprises and organiza- tions active in the field of ICT and mul- timedia. Its primary role is to offer its members the support they need to establish and strengthen a healthy business and information industry net- work. SwissMedia is open to a wide array of industry players, from tele- phone operators to website hosts as well as companies focused on multi- media software and application deve- lopment. Members include also com- panies who are avid users of multime- dia tools and applications in different industrial domains of activity. El • twm.svmsmecka.ch National campaign to attract WSA entries WSA CATEGORIES The best in e-content and creativity In the Information Society all aspects of social life are transformed through the use of Information and Communication Technologies. The right to information and the opportu- nity to communicate are basic social rights. They can be exercised only if quality contents are available in all sectors, especially in: • e-Learning • e-Culture • e-Science • e-Govemment • e-Health • e-Business • e-Entertainment • e-Inclusion The WSA eight categories reflect how important e-inclusion of the develo- ping countries into the Information Society is. Sectors like health, politics, science, education, business as well as entertainment are the main social issues of daily human life in which people not only have the right and the opportunity to communicate but also should have access to use the best applications to further increase know- ledge and progress in their respective countries. Buthan's WSA Eminent Expert Gopi Pradhan is writing that a national campaign was started contacting each and every webmaster in the country. He adds: «The responses are quite good and in the coming week I will begin to register the best products). One concern is that a Buthan entry might not be found for all content categories of the WSA. WSA Board Chairman Peter A. Bruck says: «It is not at all necessary to enter a finalists in each and every of the 8 categories of the WSA. The key task of the World Summit Award is to show and demonstrate the richness and diversity of e-contents from all corners of the world. Everyone involved is fully aware that an arbitrary element remains in all categorisations and evaluations. That's the reason why all are invited to add to the process for the coming year and the WSA 05 process*. EFTA00578389 www.wsis-award.org What you can find online • the latest news on the WSA-Events at the WSIS in Geneva, 2003 • a detailed view on the mission and vision of the WSA • information about the project progress • all important dates, milestones and contact information • a listing of the members of the WSA expert panel from 136 countries • a listing of our partners, sponsors and patrons • everything about the WSA Board members WSA SPONSORS & PARTNERS What you can do online • download a general information folder and back issues of the WSA-newsletter • register if you are interested in beco- ming a sponsor • register as press representative to get additional information • get the latest news on activities of the WSA network, which now includes 136 countries • register if you are interested in beco- ming a WSA partner • get milestones and information for the WSA Expert Panel process NOIONNIONOTO/Na WORTSOOOT old a Bundy • taunt If womb Geneva Events Best Practice Showcase Event Palexpo, Geneva, Hall A 10. December 2003, 17:00 - 19:00 The Best Practice Showcase Event as a high- light of the WSIS 2003, will present and cele- brate the best practice examples in e-content and applications, selected by a jury of experts. The event will include video presentations of the best products from all around the world. Content Villages Palexpo, Geneva, 1CT 4 o Platform 9. -13. December 2003 Seven Content Villages from seven regional sections of the world will present their pro- ducts to the WSIS participants and to its public. Every village will be represented by the producers to demonstrate their products. 77777 ONION OOOOOOO ION PONOANION Of TNINVIOCIII Of Nail ilio.nomtelialcriLwivuoatia Bundesministerium fOr auswartigc Angelcgenhciten Department of Foreign Affairs MiniMere des 'moires etrangeres and International I rade et du Commerce international Trade commissioner Service The Wok' Summit Award is an initiative by the European Academy of Digital Media and the International Center for New Media. e fl P • • ilenm Service nes deicquec commrsrciaux World Summit Award Office ICNM International Center for New Media Moosstrasse 43a, 5020 Salzburg, AUSTRIA vAievwsis-avraid.org Lauzum Ls-kJ] OJJID DUBAI INTERNET CITY oub/H Motto ( ity Freedom to Creole Worlds Best Practice News Publisher • Peter A.Bruck Chief Editor Thomas Assistant Editors • Christian Bauer, Anastasia kostantinova, Caitriona Rynne, Tatjana Stimmkr Editorial Oesign: Martin rimier EFTA00578390