MUSCAT, March 12
The sixth edition of Sultan Qaboos Award for Excellence in eGovernment was launched by the Information Technology Authority (ITA) on Monday.
The award recognises the quality of service of all national development projects.
Instituted after His Majesty’s historic speech during at the annual meeting of the Council of Oman in 2008, the title envisages multifarious areas of public e-governance in terms of encouraging local organisations to facilitate services by utilising digital technology and motivating local organisations to implement the new digital projects.
In the last five editions, 49 ICT projects have won awards. They have contributed to streamlining life and accelerating processes in both government and private entities, resulting in greater benefit for community, according to Dr Salim bin Sultan al Ruzaiqi, CEO, ITA.
“The Sultan Qaboos Award for Excellence in eGovernment has been growing from strength to strength in terms of participation and the interest it has created. As of now, nearly 14 such projects have won awards at the regional and international level,” he said.
ITA also held a workshop to introduce the categories and criteria for the latest edition of awards, which was attended by 160 professionals from 64 government and private sectors, including SMEs.
These categories include: Best Government e-Service (individuals); Best e-Service Supporting Doing Business (G2B); Best Practice in Community e-Participation; Best Government Application for Smart Devices; Best Whole of Government Project; Best e-Transformation Achievement; and Best Open Data Initiative.
For private entities, the categories are: Best Private Sector e-Service; Best Private Application for Smart Devices and award for Best SME e-Service in this year’s edition.
“With the Best Open Data Initiative, a new approach that refers to the information disclosed and made available online, we aim to assess how these government service providers have succeeded in improving the quality of their decision-making processes and public e-Services,” said Dr Al Ruzaiqi.
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