Today, on 27 November 2018, winners of the World Summit Awards under the auspices of the United Nations were announced (www.worldsummitawards.org) – Top 5 content solutions in each of 8 WSA categories. This year, even two Lithuanian projects were ranked among Top 40 digital innovations: Pulse Tip (Pulsetip) was declared the winner in the business and commerce category, and Computers for Children (Computer Support Foundation) – in the teaching and education category.
Solutions created by Lithuanians had to pass quite tough selection procedure – more than 430 nominated digital solutions from 180 countries all over the world competed in the WSA contest which were assessed by experts of the Grand Jury representing different regions of the world having regard to the idea of solutions, technical implementation and input into the reduction of the digital divide. This year, 40 solution winners represent 26 countries of the world ranging from Chile to Norway, from Lithuania to Sri Lanka.
“It is a great and pleasing result that among 40 the best solutions this year we have even two winners from Lithuania,” told Ieva Žilionienė, National Expert of the World Summit Awards and Member of the Grand Jury. “This proves once again that we are creators of digital innovations, capable to create and to demonstrate digital solutions that are acknowledgeable on the global level. We expect, that this success will inspire enthusiasts to create and to present for these world awards digital solutions of which we can be proud in Lithuania and abroad also next year”.
“This award is one more proof to our small team that it is worth making the effort, that we create what brings a very great value to companies,” stated Asta Čepulytė, Head of the start-up Pulsetip – smart, comfortable, and quick feedback process tool for employees. “We start bringing together staff members of organisations to digitise the feedback and communication processes by providing innovative real-time working decisions. We feel acknowledged and are pleased that our efforts have been noticed.”
The team of initiatives “Computers for Children”, the biggest non-governmental IT educational company in Lithuania, intended for the development of children’s programming skills and creativity, also is satisfied with an achievement. “We distributed computers on the basis of other countries’ practice; we, however, implemented the initiative in a unique way, by paying attention to the Lithuanian context. We were different; we boldly did what it seemed necessary to us – we sought to arrange as many training as possible, to involve the largest possible number of pupils, volunteers and teachers to learn programming in an interesting and simple form. The fact that today we received an international award is the greatest acknowledgement that inspires our team to work towards innovative education even more! Now we have a global confirmation that in Lithuania, everyone may create great things with one’s own hands; you just need determination and willingness to work,” told Project Manager Viltautė Žvirzdinaitė.
The ceremony of congratulating and paying tribute to the winners, together with meetings intended for the winners and presentation events, will take place in March 2019 during the WSA world congress in Cascais (Portugal).
The World Summit Awards is a world initiative launched by the United Nations in 2003, when the first World Summit on Information Society took place in Geneva. The goal of the contest is to find and to honour the world’s best digital innovations contributing to the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. The selection at national level to these world awards in Lithuania is digital innovations contest “New book-hawker” (www.naujasisknygnesys.lt), which new stage will start in Spring 2019.
Source: IVPK, RRT
Updated on 2018-12-04