What do a giant computer in Venezuala, a Japanese kimono clearinghouse, an Irish healthcare-rating system and an American political-financing watchdog group all have in common?
Slideshow: Winner highlights from the 2007 World Summit Awards
They are all multimedia efforts that picked up World Summit Awards (WSA) handed out this week by the European International Telecommunications Union at its Global Forum 2007 conference held in Venice this week.
Since 2002, the International Telecommunications Union has been recognizing technology projects across the globe that overcome the “digital divide” to produce a “digital dividend.” Peter Bruck, chairman of the WSA organization, announced the 40 final awards, which were winnowed down from a base of 24,000 projects submitted from 168 countries.
World Summit Award projects fall into one of eight categories (e-Government, e-Health, e-Learning, e-Entertainment, e-Culture, e-Science, e-Business and e-Inclusion) that show the range of applications creativity in the 21st century. The World Summit Awards focus on “quality content” in applications, rather than technologies for themselves. The theme in 2007 is “New Media for a Better World.”
A full list of winners can be found on the Global Forum Site, but here are some highlights from that list.
* Mundobinario.net won as an interactive entertainment building in Venezuela that replicates a giant computer for children and adults to walk through, billed as a “journey inside the world’s largest computer.”
* I-kimono.com won an e-Business award as an online clearinghouse for Japanese kimono culture — a combination marketplace, charity auction and learning resource.
* Ratemyhospital.ie won in e-Health as a rolling online survey of patient satisfaction in the Irish health system. Patients give immediate feedback on their experiences in the system's hospitals that the site aggregates “to provide patient-centered transparency, leading to improvements in the entire health infrastructure.”
* Desertrebel.com took an e-Entertainment award as a multimedia platform by filmmaker Francois Bergeron for “artists to overturn history and free political stereotypes and national amnesias.”
There were also awards for advances in e-Science, such as the Portal Cuban Science Network and the China Digital Science and Technology Museum.
Some breakthrough applications that might present enterprise opportunities included the ATM Express Government project in the Mexican state of Chiapas and Mexico City. ATM-style kiosks work 24/7 for government services, without human intervention and potential for corruption. Driver’s license renewal takes place in two minutes, and license plate renewal takes three minutes in Mexico with these technologies.
An Austrian site, KiloCoach, in German, is a personal nutrition portal that includes a personal daily calorie calculator and guide. Medicine Combination won in e-Health for its information site on prescription, herbal, vitamin and minerals drug interaction. This references Denmark’s National Drug Interaction Database, sponsored by government and pharmaceutical sources.
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