The City of Joburg’s library e-learning services has been selected to participate in the ninth edition of the United Nations (UN) World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) award, and is calling for public votes.
The WSIS is a UN initiative that began with the goal of achieving a shared commitment to building a people-centric, inclusive and development-oriented information society, where everyone can create and share information.
The contest was developed in response to requests from WSIS stakeholders to create an effective mechanism to evaluate projects and activities that leverage the power of ICT to advance sustainable development. The UN says the contest has attracted hundreds of thousands of stakeholders since inception.
Twenty innovative projects from countries including Algeria, Paraguay, Malaysia, Ghana and United Arab Emirates have been identified to participate in the award programme.
These innovations have become central to the information society, with some already facilitating rapid changes, and in some cases, transformation in their societies and economies.
“The City of Joburg’s library e-learning services was nominated for its mobile literacy programme that introduces productive ways of using mobile devices for various purposes, such as reading, doing school homework, writing development, gamification and edutainment activities,” saysthe city in a statement.
Activities under mobile literacy include educational apps, such as Little Alchemy, that introduce learners to chemistry; the Brain It On puzzle game, which introduces learners to physics and how to solve complex tasks; and Tanks Coding, which teaches learners to code using puzzles.
Since its inception in 2018, over 5 000 children have benefited from the library’s mobile literacy programme, run across 36 libraries in the city, notes the statement.
The WSIS prize for 2020 is international recognition of WSIS stakeholders as winners and champions for their excellence in supporting the implementation of WSIS outcomes, in particular WSIS Action Lines, which support the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
In order to win the award, the city’s library e-leaning services need the public to vote. The voting process requires the voter to register as a new user, and then vote in each of the 18 categories.
Voting closes on 24 January.
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