ICTA hosts ‘e-Swabhimani’ Awards celebrating outstanding digital innovators

The ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), the apex ICT Institution together with the Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure Ministry recently announced the launch of ‘e-Swabhimani Awards 2017’, the nation’s premier digital social impact awards honouring outstanding digital innovators who have impacted society using digital technologies.

The awards ceremony will be held on 30th November at Hotel Galadari, with the participation of a distinguished gathering of senior government officials, industry leaders, digital entrepreneurs and the media.

Since its launch in 2009, the ‘e-Swabhimani Awards’ have continued to recognise outstanding, forward-thinking and truly innovative local digital solutions and hi-tech applications that have helped make society more inclusive, efficient, offer new services, empower citizens, whose overall benefits are reaped by all.

Today, the e-Swabhimani Awards is established as the most prestigious national event celebrating outstanding digital solutions which has made a definite high social impact, solving the real needs of local communities. This year’s event, organised for the seventh consecutive year attracted a record number of 205 submissions and included nominations not only from established organizations but also from budding entrepreneurs, start-ups and students.

Nominations were accepted across nine categories including government and citizen engagement, health and well-being, learning and education, environment and green energy, culture and tourism, smart settlement and urbanization, business and commerce, inclusion and empowerment and digital entertainment.

“It’s exciting that there are so many initiatives using digital technology to bring about change, providing access to knowledge, healthcare solutions, sustainable environment and a whole gamut of services that can improve the daily lives of people. The e-Swabhimani Award offers a platform for showcasing the creativity and ingenuity of our developers using digital technology for social good,” explained ICTA Chairperson Chitranganie Mubarak.

Not only is ‘e-Swabhimani’ a symbol of excellence but also serves as a stepping stone to the World Summit Award, a global initiative implemented within the framework of the United Nations’ World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) and regional awards such as the ‘Manthan Awards South Asia’ and the ‘mBillionth Award’ for mobile applications.The procedure for selecting winners at the e-Swabhimani are also in line with the global best practices adopted by WSA. Ensuring an objective evaluation, the e-Swabhimani grand jury comprises eminent experts drawn from various fields who have the required knowledge and experience to apply the judging criteria across the listed categories.
Impressively the 2017 World Summit Award saw six of Sri Lanka’s eight nominations making it to the final round. Sri Lanka was second only to Germany which had seven entries.