Representing the Crown Prince, Kuwaiti Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Minister Jamal Al Shihab honoured the eGovernment Authority by handing over the Shield of Honor to eGovernment Authority Chief Executive Officer Mohammad Al Qaed. Other entities and personalities who significantly contributed to the ICT field were also awarded; including the Board of Trustees Shaikh Salem Al Ali earning the Informatics Award, the World Summit Award Kuwait’s Central Agency for Information and Technology; Middle East Excellence Awards Institute of United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kuwait Electronic Award.
It is worth mentioning that this honor came as a result of the efforts exerted by the Bahrain eGovernment Authority in spreading the culture of Excellence in ICT within Bahrain and across the region through the application of many successful, strategic projects in ICT and eGovernment fields. In addition to organizing the Excellence Awards locally which was subsequently adopted by the GCC countries; hence the GCC eGovernment Award was launched for the public and private entities across the GCC region. Moreover, the eGovernment Authority introduced the Arab eContent Award as the first of its kind in this domain – to enable Arab entities compete and qualify for the participation in the World Summit Award (WSA).
“The experience of Bahrain in the field of eGovernment and its contributions to raising awareness has helped to accelerate the process of eTransformation in the Kingdom,” Al Qaed said, who hailed the initiative of honouring the eGovernment Authority.
“This privilege is an incentive for Bahrain and other countries to pursue and focus in ICT as the key element towards the economic and social development.”
“The eGovernment will continue its efforts to inspire ICT innovations across Arab countries and among youth, in addition to its efforts to encourage and empower local, regional and Arab institutions to innovate unique products and solutions based on international standards in this area, as well as encourage innovations to enhance the Arabic eContent”, Al Qaed added.
Besides Kingdom of Bahrain, the forum attracted a number of Arab and foreign countries; namely UAE, Kingdom of Morocco, Qatar, Kingdom of Spain and Austria. A variety of topics were covered; such as The Role of Waqf in Supporting Technology, Leading IT Initiatives Within the General-Secretariat of Awqaf, IT Support to Enrich Wagf Discipline Library, Arab and Global ICT Practices in the Field of Waqf; and Nurturing Excellence in ICT Industry.
Dr. Al Khaja discussed the positive returns and outcomes of the three awards such as the eMaturity progress in public and private entities, the development of the country’s comprehensive development. He also revealed the Authority’s future plans of expanding and developing the electronic awards.