Bahrain's eGovernment portal wins Arab GoldenChip Award

The Arab Golden Chip Award is organized by the Union of Arab ICT Associations and goes through a 3-stage process. Applications are first collected from every Arab country for the award's six categories (Best Online Application in Government, Best Online Application in Banking, Best Online Application in Commerce, Best Software Product for Export, Best Hardware Product, and Best Arabic Content Project), finalists are then selected by the award's judging panel and finalists present in front of the judging panel and attendees.

The Kingdom of Bahrain participated in the award through its eGovernment portal under the category of Best Online Application in Government, and was successful against other shortlisted Arab countries' portals from countries including Syria and the United Arab Emirates. The award was presented to Mr. Isa Abdulrahman, Bahrain eGovernment Authority's Director of Marketing and Awareness.

The award comes as following the clear strategy set by Bahrain's eGovernment's program which contains 167 governmental services, in addition to 67 actual services already available on the eGovernment's portal for four categories (individuals, businesses, government, and visitors) in Arabic and English.

His Excellency Sheikh Ahmed bin Atiyat Allah Al Khalifa, Bahrain's Minister of Cabinet Affairs, dedicated the success of Bahrain eGovernment portal's Arab Golden Chip Award to His Highness Sheikh Mohammad bin Mubarak Al Khalifa, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Supreme ICT Committee and thanked His Highness for his continuing support of Bahrain's eGovernment program.

In addition, His Excellency Sheikh Ahmed said that the Kingdom of Bahrain's participation in all regional and international ICT awards is an important element in the execution of Bahrain's national eGovernment strategy since helping to ensure Bahrain's leading edge excellence in the field of eGovernment as compared to other nations.

His Excellency also congratulated all of Bahrain's ministries and government agencies and considered them a partner in this success since the services they provide through the eGovernment online portal played a considerable role in winning the award.

Mr. Mohammad Ali Al-Qaed, eGovernment Authoriy's Chief Executive Officer added that the eGovernment's online portal currently provides 67 online governmental services, and visitor numbers to the portal has surged due to its full range of governmental services and payment methods, including credit cards and ATM debit cards.

He thanked government ministries and agencies for their efforts in making these services possible through the portal and turning it into a one-stop shop for the wider public to conduct all its government services.

Mr. Al-Qaed also highlighted the benefits of the eGovernment's portal which include: numerous ways to reach any online service, ability to search for any online service in Arabic and English, classification of online services into four categories (individuals, businesses, government, and visitors) complete a huge database of useful information under each category, compilation of all information related to a online services in one page (such as name of service, information about it, proper use of service before actually doing so).

The portal also provides visitors with the ability to print out the information relevant to their desired service(s) and control the font along with bilingual instructions on converting it into PDF format, in addition to videos that allow visitors to live the experience of using that particular service and a simplified user interface for easy browsing.