City of Vancouver News Release: City's website recognized with international award for e-content

City of Vancouver News Release

September 29, 2005

City's website recognized with international award for e-content

The City of Vancouver's website -- vancouver.ca -- has been named as a winner in the best e-government category by the World Summit Awards (WSA), a global contest for selecting and promoting the world's best electronic/online content and applications.

Affiliated with the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society, the WSA brings together 168 countries competing in eight categories: e-government, e-learning, e-business, e-culture, e-science, e-health, e-inclusion and e-entertainment. The WSA looks for projects that effectively and creatively deliver high-quality content that educates and engages its audience. Five winners were selected in each category.

An international panel of experts in the field chose the winning entries through an extensive adjudication process that included three rounds of reviews and voting.

Vancouver.ca was deemed as an excellent example of a government website that helps inform, educate and engage citizens by providing enriched, value-added content.

The City's website has entire areas dedicated to major City projects and initiatives and policy debates. Examples of content the judges reviewed:

the Woodward's project website, an example of a major project site that documents the history of Woodward's, the community consultation process and illustrations from the public Ideas Fair, all the way up to the latest development plans;
GVTV, a collection of online video stories about the issues, debates, people and ideas that shape the city. Although archived at www.gvtv.ca, links to these video stories are also incorporated throughout the vancouver.ca website providing web visitors with added context on many issues;
the Community Web Pages, which consists of community profiles of Vancouver's various neighbourhoods, as well as a database of community calendar listings and upcoming City meetings and events;
the Road Ahead website, which provides construction updates and traffic cameras at key Vancouver intersections; and
live video from Council meetings, which is also archived for later viewing and paired with links to the relevant Council reports.

Learn more about the World Summit awards at www.wsis-award.org.

For more information:
Catherine Clement
Director of Communications
604.873.7270

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