a2i project gets WSIS award for second straight year

The government’s Access to Information (a2i) project has won the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) award for the second consecutive year.

‘National Web Portal of Bangladesh’ received the prestigious award in ‘Access to Information and Knowledge’ category this year, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office Md Abul Kalam Azad said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Director of the project Kabir Bin Anwar received the award at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s headquarters in Geneva on Monday, he said.

The ITU is the United Nations’ specialised agency for information and communication technology.

‘Teachers Portal’, another a2i project, was also nominated in the fourth category on ‘Capacity Building’.

In the third category of the contest, Bangladesh won the award among the 46 innovative projects from countries including the USA, China, Germany, Indonesia, Italy and India.

Some 25,000 websites and 42,000 government offices are connected to National Web Portal of Bangladesh,www.bangladesh.gov.bd.

Azad said the portal provided over 150 e-services.

The services include birth and death registration, utility bill payment, passport application, tax payment and download of government forms.

“Bangladesh National Web Portal has added two million contents, photographs of over 45,000 historical and archaeological sites and an e-directory containing information on 700,000 government employees and officials,” he said.

a2i programme is run by the Prime Minister’s Office with technical assistance from the UNDP and USAID.

Last year, a2i received the WSIS award in recognition of its role in improving people’s lives through the use of ICT.