UAE eContent winners to represent UAE at the World Summit Awards (WSA) contest

The six winners who will represent UAE in the World Summit Awards are:

E-Science - CADMagazine.net
An Arabic portal for Computer Aided Design (CAD), Geographical Information System (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS), Global Positioning System (GPS) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM)

E- Learning - The Career Coach
The Career Coach is an innovative, multimedia package, which comprises a series of personal and career development workshops tailored for Middle Eastern students. Its powerful interactive e-profile enables students to receive personalised feedback based on their answers.

E-Entertainment - ExpatWoman.com
ExpatWoman.com is a monthly magazine read by over 30,000 women, worldwide. It addresses issues of general interest to women everywhere - beauty, health and travel. It also provides comprehensive support services for expatriates who are relocating.

E-Business - Jotun Professionals Network
The Jotun Professionals Network website is used as a cost-effective channel of communication to consistently engage customers and professionals. The main objective of Jotun's professional network is to build relationship-based transactions with architects, interior designers and consultants across the region.

E- Culture - Alwaraq
Alwaraq.com is a comprehensive free Arabic Digital library , which includes over a million pages of the most important Arabic classical books , plus some important books on world heritage like The Story of Civilization. Visitors of the website can read the full text of a book , do text search , add annotations , discuss books with other visitors and join cultural discussions.

E-Government - Dubai Municipality's Web Site
Dubai Municipality's portal offers more than 300 online services to the public. The portal is designed to meet the changing needs of customers

The judging panel did not name any winners in the E-Inclusion and E-Health categories.

Special mentions were also awarded to:

Dubai Police's touch-screen kiosks (E-Government)
Dubai Police is using a one Stop KIOSK for residents to access their e-services. Through the kiosks people can renew licenses, renew vehicles registration, pay fines, register complaints and also get live traffic updates

My ICT School (E-Learning)
My ICT SCHOOL is an interactive CD series that allows students to learn and develop ICT skills at their own pace. The programme teaches students relevant and current technology concepts.

Yahadi Web Browser (E-Entertainment)
Yahadi is a multi-lingual web browser that allows users to have their own personalised password-protected settings. One of its most popular features is a site blocking system. A useful add-on to Internet Explorer (I.E.), it extends the features of I.E. in a user friendly manner and makes Internet usage monitoring achievable to most users regardless of their background

HalloDubai.com (E-Culture)
www.hallodubai.com is a comprehensive website on the UAE in German. Compiled by a UAE citizen, it offers a wide variety of information on Dubai and the UAE from an insider's point of view..

Tejari.com (E-Business)
Tejari's portal provides visitors and members with comprehensive, well-structured and personalised information about the B2B industry in the UAE and the region..

"I would like to congratulate all the winners of the UAE Contest for eContent and wish them every success in proceeding towards the next stage, where they will compete on behalf of the UAE at the global competition of the World Summit Awards," says Dr. Omar Bin Sulaiman, Board Member of the Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone. "The winning products and services have all been developed here in the UAE and demonstrates the increasing innovation and richness of the country's e-content scene."

Dubai Internet City, Dubai Media City and Dubai Knowledge Village organised the national competition as part of its commitment to the World Summit Awards (WSA). The WSA is a global competition backed by the United Nations that seeks to select the world's most innovative and creative e-content applications.

The Awards were initiated by UN member states in cooperation with the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), a summit endorsed by the UN and organised by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to help move towards a common global vision on the Information Society.

Other national e-content contests are being held in UN member nations across the world to select nominees for the World Summit Awards (WSA). The winners of the UAE contest will join other national winners in a global competition to select the winners of the WSA.

The WSA is working with an International Grand Jury, which will evaluate all the winners of the national competitions around the world to select winners in eight categories. These awards will then be presented at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in November 2005.

To fulfil the WSA jury statutes' requirements of international diversity and expertise, Grand Jury members have been chosen from each of the following contest regions: Africa, Asia, Australia, North and Latin America, the Arab Region as well as Europe.

The UAE has already scored highly in the previous contest, held in 2003, when online procurement portal Tejari won the award for best e-Content in the e-Business category.