San Remigio ICT project wins international award

CEBU, Philippines - The project, Restoring Connectivity: Movable and Deployable Resource ICT Unit (MDRU), of the Municipality of San Remigio, Cebu has won the Information Society Innovation Fund (ISIF Asia) Award.

Nominated by CVISNET Foundation, MDRU won under the Community Impact category. The award for Technical Innovation category was won by Malaysia through its project, Towards A Fairer Electoral System: 1 Person, 1 Vote, 1 Value, nominated by Tindak.

Each winner receives a cash prize of AUD 3,000 to support their work and a travel grant of AUD 4,000 for a project representative to participate at the 11th Internet Governance Forum in Guadalajara, Mexico in December to participate at the awards ceremony, showcase their project, make new professional contacts, and participate in discussions about the future of the Internet.

In addition, one of the two projects will receive the Community Choice Award for the project with more votes from the community. The award will provide an additional AUD 1,000 for the winner.

The MDRU is a unit that can be quickly deployed to restore communications in communities in the aftermath of a disaster. The unit is self-reliant running on its own power source, and/or is able to harness other power sources such as power generators or local active power lines.

The bitter experience from Haiyan, which showed how helpless and isolated a community can be during a disaster, has encouraged the team to push for approval of the project from the Japanese government.

CVISNET was in charge for the initial proposals and project implementation, social preparation and trainings of the MDRU project in the Philippines. The Japanese government through the Ministry of Internal affairs and Communications (MIC) provided the funding in cooperation with the UN-ITU.

The project was aimed at strengthening the capabilities of countries exposed to several disasters such as typhoon and earthquakes every year. It aims to restore/provide ICT services in disaster-affected areas, which also need to be long-term and sustainable.

The ISIF Asia Awards seek to acknowledge the important contributions innovators have made to their communities, by addressing social and development challenges using Internet technologies.  (FREEMAN)