Blog Post

Two Ghanaian innovations are representing the country at the 2013 World Summit Award (WSA). The two winners, Nandi Mobile, a mobile technology startup and Mobile Technology for Community Health in Ghana (MoTeCH), a technology-driven health initiative. They have been announced winners in their respective categories of e-Business and Commerce, and e-Health and Environment in this year’s World Summit Awards. Ghana becomes one of the most successful nations at the Award after receiving awards for two Ghanaian products. This  award is UN-based initiative to promote the world’s best e-content.

Nandimobile won with their Infoline product which is a mobile and web service which connects consumers and businesses in emerging markets. The service provides mobile-users the option to send messages to businesses and receive responses from the businesses through a private channel, while going around the limitation of lack of internet access. The product also offers it users the convenience of obtaining relevant business information about products and service through SMS.

MoTeCH is part of a service delivery for maternal health at Antenatal Care; it has two applications which are the Mobile-Midwife Application and the Nurse Application. Mobile Mid-Wife targets pregnant clients with educational and actionable messages tailored to their stages in pregnancy. The Nurse Application is aligned to simplified paper registers to collect clinical information. This enables easy identification of both mothers and infants and saves time collating information to generate monthly reports, alerts and reminders for clients that need care.

At a press briefing, Wednesday, 18th September, 2013, Dr.Dorothy Gordon, the Director-General of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE) congratulated the winners and appreciated the work of these Ghanaian innovators. In her speech to the press, she disclosed that “There is no country that had more joint winners at the world summit than Ghana”.

She spoke of the WSA for driving outstanding e-content relevant  to people’s needs  and to the achievement of the MDGs, She also indicated that Ghana’s consistent high achievements in the highly competitive WSA, is an indicator of the quality of Ghanaian talent and skills as well as our rapidly  growing innovation ecosystem. She said “We are making sure that we have world class products from Ghana”

Edward Amartey-Tagoe Co-founder of Nandimobile executive expressed his team’s joy for the international recognition.  He stated that “Ghanaian tech entrepreneurs are here to build world acclaimed products that will receive international recognition”.

According to a WSA release, both Ghanaian products have one thing in common: They serve specific needs of millions of Ghanaian people and thereby fulfill the WSA’s claim for high quality local e-content which can serve as a model on a global level perfectly.

The winners will present their venture on a global stage and in front of a high class international audience. The Gala 2013, organized by the WSA team and its Sri Lanka partner organization ICTA (Information and Communication Agency) will take place in Colombo from October 23 to 26 2013.

Other Ghanaian innovations that made it to the finals include Trokxi in the e-Culture and Tourism category, Yougora in e-Inclusion and Empowerment, MyPassco in the E-learning and Education and Leti games (Leti Arts) for e-entertainment and Games, Street Development Project for e-Inclusion and Empowerment, Bedroom Diaries from Viasat 1 for Media and Journalism.

The World Summit Award

The World Summit Award (WSA) is the global follow-up initiative of the United Nations World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) organised by the International Center for New Media (ICNM), Salzburg, Austria. It partners with the key UN organisations and agencies in the framework of the UN Geneva Agenda and the Tunis Action Plan and selects and promotes the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications; to date more than 160 countries are actively involved. Through national pre-selections and contests together with a global jury process, WSA demonstrates the local diversity and rich creativity of ICT use. WSA is a global hub for everyone who values the crucial importance of local content to make today’s information society more inclusive.

The delegation of Eminent Experts of the World Summit Award has been invited to Estonia by The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. WSA delegation is hosted by the Estonian Information System’s Authority, the Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications, the Centre of Registers and Information Systems and the representative of WSA in Estonia, Mrs Katri Ristal. WSA delegation’s visit takes place in the framework of EU Structural Funds’ programme „Raising public awareness about the information society“ and is funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

Visit us on www.wsis-award.org, facebook.com/WorldSummitAward and twitter.com/WSAoffice

By : Kofi Yeboah.