Vietnam wins a gold medal in APICTA 2005 Award.

The Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) is an international Awards Program initiated by the Multimedia Development Corporation of Malaysia to increase ICT awareness in the community and assist in bridging the Digital Divide. By providing networking and product benchmarking opportunities to ICT innovators and entrepreneurs in the region, the program is designed to stimulate ICT innovation and creativity, promote economic and trade relations, facilitate technology transfer, and offer business matching opportunities via exposure to venture capitalists and investors.

Participants of the Awards Program comprise members of the APICTA Network. They are guided by the Framework of Cooperation identifying how member-economies can work together in support of the Awards Program as well as other programs that foster development and growth of the ICT industry in the region. Its 15 member-economies include Australia, Brunei, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and China

APICTA member-economies take turns in hosting the annual Awards Program, which is won through a bidding process. Meanwhile, nominees to the different awards are presented to APICTA by the respective economy coordinator and assessed by a panel of judges representing every member-economy. The first two APICTA Awards were held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2001 and 2002 while the third was held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2003. The forth year of the Awards was held in Hong Kong on 8-11 December 2004.

APICTA Golden Cups are conferred on industrial and professional products belonging to 14 applied professional ICT (Information and Communication Technology) field, 11 of which are specialized branches with professional-level products in applied ICT industries in the following categories: education & training, healthcare, e-Government & services, security, industrial Applications, communications Applications, Fiinancial Applications, general Applications, media and entertainment, tourism and hospitality, appplications and infrastructure tools, research and development, start-up company and tertiary student project.

APICTA Contest is particularly important in intensifying the exchange and development of ICT industries in Asia – Pacific region. The Awards nature is contest and competition. It is not only a simple competition between enterprises, but a comprehensive competition between countries in technical, scientific and technological level, in research, training and ICT applications. Through APICTA we can see the development level of ICT in each country APICTA are truth the most dignified ICT prizes in the Asia – Pacific region in the present time.

Mr. Kanawat Vasinsungworn, Deputy Minister of Information Technology and Telecommunication of Thailand

The Vietnamese APICTA delegation headed by Dr. Nguyen Quy Son, President of the Vietnamese APICTA Examination Board, presented nine ICT products participating in the following categories:

E-Government & Services: “Electronic Office System” of Dr. Pham Van Sang Director of Dong Nai Department of Science and Technology. This is the first time Vietnam participates in this category. And “The Business Information Management System (BIMS)” of FPT Company.

Financial Applications: “Smart Bank”of FPT Company.

Applications and Infrastructure Tools: “IRP Solution an ERP Packaged” of AZ Solution JSC.

Research and Development: “Traffic Monitoring System by Computer Vision” of NEWSTECPRO

Tertiary Student Project: “Transparent Network and Transport Layer Nomilizer” of the Institute of Information Application; and “Ubiquitous Healthcare Information System” Ha Noi University of Foreign Trade.

Education & Training: “Dictionary of communicative signals for the hearing impaired” of by Ho Chi Minh University of Pedagogy

Start-up Company: “The online Portal- integrated News Providing Solution: mvnForum and mvnCMS” of MVN Group of Huu Ngoc Company.

          Here is the result of the APICTA 2005 Award

The “Dictionary of communicative signals for the hearing impaired” of by Ho Chi Minh University of Pedagogy is the winner of the Education & Training category. It is based on Dot Net technology. It comprises of 3,900 examples for 2,000 popular words. It helps teachers and students of this field to improve their communication skills with people with hearing impairment, especially relatives of people with hearing impairment can use this dictionary to learn communicative signals so as to bridge the communication gaps between them.

The most significant thing of this software is that it is provided freely for schools and people with hearing impairment. In the coming time, it will be upgraded to be a open-source software.

Although the Dong Nai Department of Science and Technology’s E-Office did not win a prize, it was highly valued by the jury among products in the field of e-government and public services.

The awarding ceremony was ended with the friendly-exchange between delegations.

(Department of Scienc and Technology of Dong Nai province, Vietnam)