WITSA Global ICT Award Winners Announced at WCIT 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 24, 2012
Contact: Anders Halvorsen [email protected]

+1 703 728-4547 Montreal (During WCIT 2012)
USA: +1 571 265 5964
WITSA Global ICT Award Winners Announced at WCIT 2012
Montreal, Canada: On the final day of the 2012 World Congress on Information Technology, the World
Information Technology and services Alliance (WITSA) announced that five private and public sector
organizations from five different countries were selected to receive the 2012 WITSA Global ICT
Excellence Awards. These Awards were presented at the World Congress Gala Dinner on October 23,
2012.
Every two years, the WITSA Global ICT Excellence Awards recognize select organizations whose use of
IT has exhibited exceptional achievement within four broad categories: Public Sector Excellence, Private
Sector Excellence, Digital Opportunity and Sustainable Growth. In addition, a special Chairman’s Award
is presented to a nominee from the entire pool of candidates from all four categories.
“It was an honor for me to be able to recognize these winners, who have positioned themselves as leaders
and top innovators by fully realizing the potential of ICT to grow the bottom line, as well as to provide
better service to citizens, improve health care, and provide trust and transparency in government” said
WITSA Chairman Dato’ Dan E. Khoo. “What better venue to recognize these crown achievements than at
the ‘Olympics of the IT industry’, the world Congress on IT.”
WITSA Chairman-Elect Mr. Santiago Gutierrez added that WITSA was also honored to grant its 2012
Eminent Persons Award to Mr. Mike Lazaridis, founder of Research in Motion (RIM). “The Eminent
Persons Award is given to people who have made significant contributions to the betterment of mankind”,
said Mr. Gutierrez. “I am very happy to say that Mr. Lazaridis fits that bill though his unique
contributions to global communications”.
WITSA Secretary General Dr. Jim Poisant concurred and noted that “the 2012 WITSA Awards was
remarkable for its large number of highly qualified nominees, and as a result, we found it necessary to
recognize some of the most noteworthy candidates by giving out WITSA merit award certificates”.
“While not being selected as winners of one of the award categories, these merit winners nevertheless
displayed first-rate use of ICT, and we are very proud to be able to recognize them today”.
The winners of the five 2012 WITSA Global ICT Excellence Awards as well as the recipients of the merit
winner certificates follow:
The Chairman’s Award
EasyHear (by Logital Co. Ltd)

EasyHear has widely been recognized as the best and most cost-effective tool to enable the deaf people to
turn a whole new chapter in their lives, by offering them an all-in-one communication tool that was never
before seen. EasyHear encompasses breakthrough, state-of-the-art, patent pending beamforming
technology for deaf people’s sound amplification needs. Beamforming previously existed only in theories,
but now EasyHear is the first in the world to achieve superior signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that far exceeds
what all the hearing aids in the world can offer, without compromising on ease of use. Our team of highly
dedicated engineers has successfully miniaturized beamforming technology, after 7 years of painstaking
research, into a package small and convenient enough to be pocketed around, along with everything else
that is built-in, without requiring any add-on accessories.
Logital Co. Limited developed EasyHear entirely in-house to create such revolution in technology.
Thousands of nursing homes, clinics, hospitals and medical supply shops all over the world now have
access to EasyHear, providing easy availability of EasyHear to the literally millions of elderly people with
age-related hearing loss and the younger hearing impaired.
Public Sector Excellence Award
Taipei City Government

To meet the global trend of digitization, Taipei City Government began exerting efforts to build the IT
infrastructure, popularize cyber education, conduct e-government reform and expand digital services for
citizens for more than 20 years. The efforts have resulted in improved government efficiency and
increased accessibility to IT applications for the public. Much effort was made during the two phases of
the initiative over the past 8 years: Phase I was guided by the objective to encourage residents to
“frequent the net and to free up the roads” by building up the website of the Taipei City Government to
allow 24/7 service; Phase II then aimed at “building a digital city, a mobile Taipei”, and this vision was to
be realized by a wireless information infrastructure, wireless LANs in public areas and on campuses,
enhanced e-Government service, a broader range of digital application for daily life needs, and better
government efficiency, turning Taipei into the most convenient wireless city for living, learning, and
working.
The success of the “UI-Taipei Initiative “Plan, along with related reinforcing strategies, have enabled the
city to: build upon its strong basis in wireless broadband networking; deliver the e-services online; set up
1999 citizen Hotline through the VoIP (Voice over Internet protocol) to offer a non-stop service; provide
government information and enquiry services; promote multi-use EasyCard; provide the MOTA (Map of
Taipei Amusement) for city information service, establish the single-window service to deal with citizen’s
opinion and compliant; install a full spectrum security surveillance system to better combat crime and
protect people’s lives and property; bridge the digital divide and foster long-term development in both
software and hardware; establish intelligent Transportation Service(ITS) to reduce carbon emission and
reduce carbon emission ; an integrated collaboration platform to better communicate with citizens.
Private Sector Excellence Award
TinyEYE Therapy Services

The acquisition of language skills is a vital part of a child's development. For some children, mastering
the art of speech is more challenging than for others. Wherever possible, they turn to speech
pathologists—professionals dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of functional and organic speech
defects—for help. But there is a critical shortage of speech pathologists in North America and around the
world. The shortage is particularly acute in rural and remote areas. An estimated 300,000 children have no
direct access to speech therapy due to geography or social and economic conditions.
This shortage of SLPs suggested a business opportunity for Saskatoon-based TinyEYE Therapy Systems.
Recognizing that therapeutic services could be effectively delivered over the Internet, the company
developed a web-based therapy platform that is accessible by any school with a computer and a high-
speed Internet connection. Requiring only a standard computer, web camera, headset and a high-speed
connection, TinyEYE's program automates reporting functions and completely eliminates travel time. The
result? The 35 SLPs employed by TinyEYE spend 90 per cent of their time with the children, an increase
of 40 per cent. More than 350 schoolchildren in Saskatchewan now receive speech therapy that they
would not otherwise receive, thanks to TinyEYE. And the company hasn't stopped there. More than 50
per cent of its sales now come from outside of Canada. In total, the company has completed more than
40,000 online therapy sessions with more than 3,000 children, spanning 12 countries and four languages.
More information: https://ingeniousawards.ca/winners/#tinyeye
Digital Opportunity Award
Virtusa Corporation for the application: Àkura School Management System

Virtusa (http://www.virtusa.com) is a leading global IT services company providing technology
consulting, technology services, application services, software development, maintenance, re-engineering,
mobility, independent software testing and outsourcing services.
Àkura (http://akuraschools.org) is an open source school management system developed under Tech
Reach. Àkura facilitates the daily administrative activities of a school and provides user-friendly
dashboards to manage them. Àkura is designed to maintain the data of the school authorities, teachers,
parents and students. The principal, teachers and parents of a particular school can view student progress
through the online portal (login to http://akuraschoolmanager.org1 for a demonstration). Àkura further
enables the principal and the school management to track the progress of teachers. Since Àkura is a free
and open source software, users can customize the system according to their needs. It can be easily
customized with the school logo, name and themes. Àkura provides robust security features to define
access rights and privilege levels to ensure information security and authorized access to sensitive data.
Audit logs record system usage and access (username, date, time, etc.). In Sri Lanka where Àkura was
developed, schools maintain attendance registers in which information is recorded daily by hand. With the
ability to integrate with fingerprint scanning and card-swiping devices, Àkura can be used to streamline
attendance recording in schools. Àkura also enables parents to stay informed of their children’s school
attendance.
Sustainable Growth Award
Green Billing (by iDotTV)

Idottv Sdn Bhd has developed a smartphone application called 'GREEN BILLING' that facilitates the
viewing of various bill statements through a single application. It benefits the user and service providers
by ensuring convenience, efficiency, cost reduction and eco-friendly. GB allows timely delivery of
telephone, credit cards or account bill statements straight to the user's smartphone. User will be able to
view each bill summary or per transaction. Added functionalities will alert the user on payment dates and
make payments online. GB ensures less bill printouts, timely bill delivery and payment higher collection,
reduced cost and greater efficiency.
For further information, see:
http://www.witsa.org/awards12/nominees/sustainable/GB_APICTA_2011_PPT.pdf
Merit winners
Due to the large number of highly qualified nominees for the 2012 WITSA Global ICT Awards, WITSA
selected several candidates that, while not selected as sector award winners, stood out as particularly
noteworthy. These WITSA merit winners are:
• Malaysian Administrative Modernization and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU):

Initiative: myIDENTITY
http://www.witsa.org/awards12/nominees/public/PIKOM_Nomination_v4.pdf
• Pointe de l’Ile Community Healthcare Centre
http://www.witsa.org/awards12/nominees/ITAC_nominations.docx
• Taiwan CAFÉ Alliance
http://www.witsa.org/awards12/nominees/private/Taiwan_CAFE_Alliance_PrivateSector_2012_0
904Final.pdf
• Carvajal Tecnologia y ServiciosS.A.S.
http://www.witsa.org/awards12/nominees/private/Private_CarvajalTecnologia_y_Servicios.doc
• ECDL ROMANIA: Large-Scale Dissemination of Basic Skills to Use ICT (eInclusion)
http://www.witsa.org/awards12/nominees/opportunity/ECDL_Romania.pdf
• EMPLEARTEC Program - CESSI
http://www.witsa.org/awards12/nominees/opportunity/CESSI_EMPLEARTEC.pdf
• Amar Desh Amar Gram (My Country My Village)
http://www.witsa.org/awards12/nominees/sustainable/AmarDeshAmarGram_MyCountryMyVilla
ge.doc
• CISCO HELLAS: Make Innovation Work Compilation
http://www.witsa.org/awards12/nominees/sustainable/SEPE_WITSA_2012_Sustainable_Growth
_NOMIN_FORM_CISCO_HELLAS.pdf
• ICT~OFFICE: For outstanding results in sustainability
http://www.witsa.org/awards12/nominees/sustainable/Dutch_ICT-
sector_saved_equivalent_of_the_electricity_use_of_1,7million_citizens_in_three_years_and_mor
e_savings_are_to_come.pdf
About WITSA
The World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) is the leading recognized
international voice of the global ICT industry, whose members from 84 countries and economies represent
more than 90 percent of the world ICT market. WITSA is dedicated to advocating policies that advance
industry growth and development; facilitating international trade and investment in ICT products and
services; strengthening WITSA’s national industry associations; and providing members with a broad
network of professional contacts.
WITSA hosts both the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT), the premier global industry
sponsored ICT conference, and the Global Policy and Trade Conference (GPAC).
WITSA members are leaders in a globally interconnected marketplace. Because the challenges facing the
ICT industry are undisputedly global in nature, WITSA members work together to achieve a shared vision
on important issues of common interest. WITSA makes it possible for its members — ranging from
Mongolia and Argentina to Kenya and the United States — to identify common issues and priorities,
exchange valuable information, and present a united position on industry issues.
For more information on WITSA, please visit www.witsa.org

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 24, 2012

Contact: Anders Halvorsen [email protected]

WITSA Global ICT Award Winners Announced at WCIT 2012

The Chairman’s Award

EasyHear (by Logital Co. Ltd)

Public Sector Excellence Award

Taipei City Government

TinyEYE Therapy Services

Digital Opportunity Award

Virtusa Corporation for the application: Àkura School Management System

Sustainable Growth Award

Green Billing (by iDotTV)

• Malaysian Administrative Modernization and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU):

For more information on WITSA, please visit www.witsa.org

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