The three New Zealand projects winners in the World Summit Awards (WSA) were represented by Jan Bieringa at the Gala in Monterey Mexico where she received their awards and also participated & presented their projects in a three day seminar.

WSA WINNERS CONFERENCE: For three days, the 40 World Summit Award (WSA) Winners teams selected from applications from all over the world, took the stage to present their awarded projects, meet each other in a panel discussion, share their visions on ICT, Creativity and Innovation, spoke about their experience and to ask and answer questions. Each session was thematically dedicated to one of the WSA categories and moderated by a member of the Grand Jury.
World Summit Award Gala
WSIS Award International Winners

The three New Zealand winners selected at the international judging on the 12th of April in Delhi, India:

e-Entertainment & Games: Areograph Limited trading as 'Areo' - Casebook

"Straddling film production, robotics and software design, Areo is a digital technology company based in Dunedin, New Zealand. At its heart is Areograph technology, pioneered by CEO Luke Reid. Composed of thousands upon thousands of images, Areograph creates 3D environments that are both more detailed and far cheaper to produce than traditional digital animation techniques. Areographed games are so realistic, they are able to use real characters and locations with no jarring contrast of gameplay and video sequences. The technology is currently on display in the award-winning /Casebook/ series of forensic crime games, but is set to find use in applications as varied as virtual tours, DVD extras and movie tie-ins. Between the familiar realm of film, and the exploding world of games, Areo is charting new territory in the far south."

e-Government & Institutions: State Services Commission - National Broadband Map

"The National Broadband Map is an online map created to provide a visual representation of New Zealand's broadband landscape. It is a valuable resource for planning broadband infrastructure and investment within New Zealand, providing the most complete map of both current broadband supply networks and the actual and potential demand points for broadband. Transparency of broadband demand is necessary to provide a basis for the assessment of commercially sound and sustainable high-speed broadband infrastructure. The National Broadband Map is an excellent example of government and the private sector working together to make information accessible to New Zealanders. The technology incorporated in the map allows any citizen, business or government agency to easily reuse, reanalyse, consume, or add to the publicly available data contained in the map. "

e-Learning & Education: Te Papa - Our Space

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is making bold and innovative steps towards forging community and exploring identity through a user-generated public interactive experience called Our Space. This venture guides visitors through two unique spaces where they are able to not only view images submitted by the public, but manipulate this media to create individual representations of national identity.

About:
The World Summit Awards honour excellence in multimedia and e-Content creation. Forty winners (5 in each category) are selected from 170 countries. A special emphasis is placed on those projects which show the benefits of information and communication technology for the development of society at large. The Awards have been running since 2003 and NZ has always had a high profile. The awards provide the opportunity to shift the focus from technology, networks and access issues to the actual applications, the resultant digital content and the visibility of the applications to a global audience.

Over and above the judging criteria the judges look for the 'value add' to NZ - what are the products & services that can we put on the global stage to increase both NZ visibility & create international sales. This is great showcase for the innovative & clever thinking that is going on in NZ.

Jan Bieringa, the NZ & Pacific WSA co-ordinator traveled to Delhi as a judge for the WSA global judging panel in early April.

The NZ judges were:

• Peter Macaulay, President of InternetNZ
• Janet Mazenier, Director, GCL
• Jan Bieringa, Independent digital strategist

Further details are available from:

J a n B i e r i n g a
info@wsa-awards.org.nz
Ph: 64 4 385 9435
Mobile: 027 535 7370
Coordinator: NZ World Summit Awards

or from:

Peter Macaulay
President, InternetNZ
peter@no1.co.nz