Eight Brazilian projects are competing for an award that will indicate the 40 best multimedia works in the world. The result will be disclosed during the World Summit on the Information Society, which will take place in Tunisia, in November.
The summit is an initiative by the United Nations Organization (UN) and its objective is to discuss how information technologies may help in the development of societies.
The meeting in which will be elected the best works will take place between the 3rd and 10th of September, in Bahrain. The executive director at the Brazilian Chamber of e-Commerce (Camara-e.net), Cid Torquato, is participating of the selection committee as the Brazilian representative.
The prizes will be awarded in eight categories, varying from long distance education to electronic trade. The Brazilian projects competing were selected by representatives of the Camara-e.net and the Association of Interactive Media (AMI).
In the long distance education field, competing for Brazil is E-Blocks, electronic program for teaching languages of the company Positivo Informática, from the southern Brazilian state of Paraná.
In the field of culture, the chosen enterprise was the portal of the cultural organization Instituto Itaú Cultural; in science, the State of São Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp) portal; and in health the Fleury laboratory Diagnostic Centre.
Also competing are, in the field of “governments”, the state of São Paulo government portal; in “foreign trade” the CorreiosNet Shopping; in “entertainment” an educational game called Bellatriz; and the Palace of Time, of the telephone services company Telefônica.
The project Piraí Digital, of the city of Piraí City Hall, in the interior of the state of Rio de Janeiro, in the Southeast of Brazil, was chosen to compete in the “digital inclusion” category.
According to Torquato, the quality of the work and the digital inclusion generated by the project were taken into consideration. The city of Piraí, for example, was chosen due to city having made available throughout the city wireless systems, for internet access, for the population.
In turn, CorreiosNet Shopping, for example, an electronic shopping mall, sells products from company of all sizes, but especially the small ones.
The Itaú, Fapesp and Fleury portals, on the other hand, are references in information in the culture, sciences and health fields. The same happens with services made available in the government of the state of São Paulo website.
The Positivo program is an innovating method of digital teaching and the Telefonica games have the children take in a series of information while playing. Each country may participate with one project per category. There will be five prizes per category.
In all, about 600 projects, from 168 countries, will be analysed. The judging committee will have 36 members. The definition will be made in Bahrain, but the results will only be disclosed at the Summit, from the 16th to 18th of November, in Tunis.
The Tunisia meeting will be the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society. The first took place in Geneva, in 2003. At the time, the Brazilian Federal Revenue and Customs website was chosen as one of the best multimedia projects in the world. The Brazilian representative in the judging committee was Marcelo Sant’Iago, from the AMI.
The World Summit on the Information Society was created by the UN as one of the measures of the Goals of the Millennium, established by the organization to reduce world poverty.
The UN promoted a series of meetings of heads of state in this context and one of them was this one, for technology.
In the 2003 summit, about 50 people, amongst representatives of the public and private sectors and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were part of the Brazilian delegation.
Brazilian participants
Positivo Informática – www.eblocks.net
Instituto Itaú Cultural – www.itaucultural.org.br
Fapesp – www.fapesp.br
Governo de SP – www.saopaulo.sp.gov.br
Centro de Diagnóstico Fleury – www.fleury.com.br
CorreiosNet Shopping – http://shopping.correios.com.br
Fundação Telefônica – www.museudotelefone.org.br/bellatrix
Piraí Digital – www.pirai.rj.gov.br
Anba – www.anba.com.br