ACN Arab Technology awards ADSIC "Government & Education Implementation of the Year"

The Arab Technology Awards are usually presented to recognize best implementations and achievements made by pioneering government entities, organizations and agencies concerned with ICT services and systems. The Awards ceremony held at the Westin Dubai Hotel was attended by more than 300 of the region's leading technology professionals, with the end user community, vendors, and enterprise integrators all represented. The ceremony was charged with an atmosphere of high competition between many successful and innovative enterprises in the field of ICT and knowledge development.

The Award category of "Government & Education Sector Implementation" received the largest number of candidates with more than 17 entities from different Arab countries nominated. The ACN Arab Technology Awards jurors short-listed 6 entities from both government and education sectors from which ADSIC was selected as the best implementer of the year.

It is worth mentioning that ADSIC issued the second version of IT Architectures & Standards reference set during the second inter-government entity forum of the Abu Dhabi e-Government Program held under the strategic theme "Realization of A Service-Oriented Government" on July 22, 2008. The first version was issued in 2006, setting a strong foundation from which Abu Dhabi is advancing towards the digital government domain.

The Abu Dhabi IT Architecture and Standards is considered a cornerstone of the e-Government initiative mandated to ADSIC upon the high directives of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, The UAE President and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, and His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Deputy Supreme Commander of UAE Armed Forces, and Chairman of The Executive Council. The Abu Dhabi e-Government initiative is an integral part of the far-reaching Emirate Policy Agenda.

On this occasion, H.E. Rashed Lahej Al-Mansoori, ADSIC Chairman, commented:

"We are very proud and happy to win this award. With God's will and inspired by the wise leadership of the Emirate, we at ADSIC will save no effort to modernize the government according to the highest global standards. We strongly believe that success is a journey and not just a destination."

"Being operational for less than 2 years, ADSIC has reached the highest level of standards in planning, designing and implementing initiatives according to the judgment of regional and international domain experts. We have developed technical guidelines and standards as core readiness initiatives to facilitate comprehensive, secure and high performing e-Government in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi," Al-Mansoori added.

Aiming at providing its residents with the best services, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi continues to improve its government services, while Abu Dhabi e-Government Program continues to drive the government modernization efforts to position Abu Dhabi Government at an internationally renowned rank in world-class services provisioning. The Program has realized many outstanding achievements and launched a variety of new initiatives aiming at firmly enhancing the future of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Recently, for example, ADSIC launched a virtual job market site - "Jobs Abu Dhabi" at the NAJAH exhibition. This site lists available job opportunities in Abu Dhabi and effectively matches them with qualified job seekers. Other ADSIC achievements include the Abu Dhabi Government Contact Centre and Abu Dhabi e-Government portal. Furthermore, ADSIC through its program has constantly helped raise the competency levels of government employees and encouraged the utilization of ICT as a supporting factor to the modernization efforts of the Emirate in all sectors.