DOST-CV third in APEC digital awards

The Central Visayas Information Sharing Network of the Department of Science and Technology emerged third in the country's 10 finalists to the 2005 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Digital Opportunity Center Awards held last August 6 at the Taipei International Convention Center in Taipei Taiwan.

The 2005 ADOC Award recognizes the best e-practices from six partner member economies for their outstanding contribution to the advancement of the emerging digital technologies and applications such as e-government and e-commerce benefiting the society in general.

Created in August 2004 and funded by the Chinese Taipei, ADOC is an independent, non-profit cooperation between the public and the private sectors serving as a platform for analyzing and expanding digital advancements and policies among APEC members.

Each country introduced their three most outstanding IT application products dubbed as the best e-practice in the conference which was anchored on the theme "Transforming digital divide to digital opportunity," the top three finalists of each country competed in the top three major awards.

The country's Bureau of Internal Revenue's e filing and payment system in Manila was adjudged as the overall winner in the whole of Asia followed by the Online Taxation System of Vietnam and then of Chile's Business Solution.

The rest of the country's finalists were the National Library of the Philippines, The Department of Science and Technology Institute, Mindanao State University of Iligan, Government of Baguio, Provincial Government of Bulacan and the University of the Philippines Open University.

Each of the representatives of the finalist agencies received a trophy and an all expense paid five day trip to the Taipei conference and awarding ceremony as prizes.

"We are happy that there are organizations like ADOC that recognize our development efforts in IT of which impact, however little, streams from the government down to the grassroots considering that we are operating on very limited resources," said CVISNET manager Jemela Gomez, who represented CVISNET in the ADOC awarding ceremony.

CVISNET is an internetworking project collaborated by the DOST Regional Development Council-7, Government Information Technology-7 and the Confederation of Scientific and Professional Organizations.

It aims to promote and facilitate internet based information sharing by providing a common exchange hub among government, non-government agencies, research institutions, academe and industry in central Visayas.