BPN 1104 E-Kingdom in 2 years!

Yesterday evening the Bahrain International eGovernment Forum was opened. Part of the ceremony was the eGov Award ceremony. Eight awards were handed out to ministers and they all showed up in order to receive a big award.
eContent: Labour Market Regulatory Authority
eService: Ministry of Education HM King Hamad H. M. King Hamad's Schools of the Future Project
eService for eGov Portal: eVisas e-Service for eGov Portal: eVisas
eMature: Labour Market Regulatory Authority
Appreciation: Ministry of Municipalities and Agriculture; Ministry of Industry and Commerce
eProposal: Bahrain Tendering Board
ICT Solution Provider: BBM
eEconomy: Economic Development Board
There were two more awards, but they were decided on the basis of statistics. The eCitizen award was given to the citizen who had dome most transactions through the Government network (for example paying of electricity bills). And the last award was for eParticipation.

The Bahrain International eGovernment Forum is indeed an international happening. There are delegations from Gulf states like Oman, Kuwait and Dubai. And they have been surprised that by the eGov competition, so I was told by a Kuwaiti. He was very interested in details and procedures.

This is not the first competition I am in. And yes it happened again. In the morning a spokesperson for a ministry called up and asked whether they should come; in other words did we win. It was interesting to see the representatives of the eGovernment Agency diplomatically telling the guy to attend the Award ceremony, so that he would hear the winners being called up. Of course the spokesperson called on behalf of his "minister". In the afternoon there was a luncheon with the foreign delegations of the Gulf States at the green ground of the Ritz and Carlton.

The Award ceremony consisted of four speeches. The handing out of the Awards was done by the Deputy Prime Minister, who is also the chair of the Supreme Committee for e-Government. And of course there were gifts for the jury (see photograph above) and for the delegations of the Gulf States.

A lot of attention is being paid in the press to the competition and the event. One newspaper had a full page with a lot of photographs. Another one made it even front page news under the eschatological title: E-Kingdom in 2 years! (Bahrain is a kingdom). I liked most the paper that noticed that the jury had decided to give two awards to the Labour Market Regulatory Authority.

Blog Posting Number: 1104

Tags: competition