OPON IMO Wins For E-Learning & Science At The WSA Global Congress, Sri Lanka 2013

From left, President,UN World Summit Awards , Professor Peter Bruck ,
Governor State of Osun , Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola , Mr. Foluso Phillps ,
Chairman/CEO, Phillips Consulting , Management Consultant Company for Opon
Imo *at the presentation of the World Summit Awards for Opon Imo at WSA
Global Congress in Sri Lanka Saturday night

Africa’s leading representative, Nigeria, won two awards in eight categories, at the Grand Finale of the ceremony. The award ceremony was the climax of the week-long annual assembly of the world’s most innovative e-content initiatives in the following categories: e-Government & Open Data, e-Health & Environment, e-Learning & Science, e-Entertainment & Games, e-Business & Commerce, e-Culture & Tourism, e-Media & Journalism and e-Inclusion & Participation.

The august event was inaugurated by His Excellency, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the President of Sri Lanka.

The winning projects, TRANSPARENT NIGERIA (e-Government & Open Data category), pioneered by Harvard based Mr. Uchechi Iweala (son of Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala), and OPON IMO – Tablet of Knowledge (e-Learning & Science category) from the State of Osun, triumphed over 421 other innovations for the 2013 Awards vetted by the grand jury of global eminent experts.
The World Summit Awards (WSA) is a project of the International Centre for New Media, which is organised among 190 UN-member States and runs within the United Nations (UN) framework of the World Summit on the Information Society. The World Summit Awards has been an on-going activity since 2003 in cooperation with UNIDO, UNESCO, ITU, ISOC, UN GAID and UNDP.
Osun’s Tablet of Knowledge, OPON IMO received its award following a Grand Jury evaluation
“The State Government of Osun in Nigeria, as part of its strategic mandate to meet the educational needs of students in Osun, commissioned delivery of 150,000 units custom-based Android tablets (a library of easily navigable text books). The tablets are packed in bear rugged leather to protect from harsh conditions of various remote areas of Nigeria and its schools.
What makes the project attractive is the archival availability of content in terms of questions for the last ten years for the Senior Secondary students of all 3 levels. Hoping that the students may not be required to look for physical text books, the tablet is enriched with multimedia contents including video, images, text and referential materials and test questions for practice.”
The grandeur of the closing ceremony obviously sets the tone for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) coming up at the same venue, same city, in the next two weeks in Sri Lanka. Professor Peter Bruck, Chairman of WSA and, the Secretary to the Government of Sri Lanka, Mr. Lalith Weeratunga drew the curtains on this Year’s event. The next event comes up in 2015.