The National IT Awards attracted over 300 nominations this year. This is a 50 percent increase over 1996, when the Awards was last organised.The biennial awards, first launched by the National Computer Board (NCB) in 1990, seek to ...
Singapore, 23 June 1998 | For Immediate Release
The National IT Awards attracted over 300 nominations this year. This is a 50 percent increase over 1996, when the Awards was last organised.
The biennial awards, first launched by the National Computer Board (NCB) in 1990, seek to recognise and honour organisations which have achieved business excellence and higher levels of success through their outstanding development and use of information technology (IT). The awards will be given out in four categories: a) Innovative Use of IT, b) Innovative IT Product, c) Innovative IT Service, and d) Excellence in IT Training.
This year's nominations see a fairly even participation from large and small companies, both IT and non-IT organisations, multinational corporations (MNCs), and local enterprises.
The "Innovative Use of IT" category received over 120 nominations of IT users from the public,private and local enterprise sectors. To boot, nominations for the public sector took a 140 percent leap over 1996.
Nominations for "Innovative IT Product" and "Innovative IT Service" formed 55 percent of all nominations. This also translates as a 66 percent increase over the number of IT products and services entries received in 1996.
The nominated IT products encompassed kiosk products, internet/computer telephony systems, as well as IT products in the finance, tourism and leisure, healthcare, and logistics sectors.
Electronic commerce applications dominate the "Innovative IT Service" entries this year. These nominations include online distance learning, shopping, banking, and information retrieval applications.
"We are very encouraged by the response. This is especially heartening considering the current economic slowdown," said Mr Thomas Yeoh, NCB's Assistant Chief Executive (Industry), commenting on the IT Awards nominations.
"To develop Singapore into a knowledge based economy, it is imperative that we move upstream in the IT value chain by developing products and applications not only for Singapore, but for an international market." Mr Yeoh added. "As such, we are pleased that 77 percent of the IT products and services nominated this year come from home-grown IT software developers and service providers; it demonstrates the industry's response in our development from a primary IT consumer into an exporter of IT products and services."
Site visits and evaluation of nominated entries will be conducted between July and August. The evaluation committee, chaired by Mr Lim Swee Say, NCB's Chairman, will comprise of senior representatives from government bodies, academic institutions, the IT industry and the businesscommunity. Winners will be announced in November.
Award winners will each receive a sculptured trophy by renowned sculptor Sun Yu-Li. Winners can expect publicity in Singapore and selected overseas markets, plus potential international exposure through various NCB-driven programmes.
For more information, please contact:
Priscilla Lee or Ong Seow Chong
National Computer Board The Hoffman Agency
Tel: 772 0508 Tel: 224 9491
Fax: 779 5340 Fax: 222 0118
E-mail: prislee@ncb.gov.sg E-mail: ong.sc@hoffman.com.sg
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