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“Rufoof” From UAE Among Top 40 In Digital Content At UN-Based Award
Published Jul 4, 2011
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‘‘Rufoof’’, the revolutionary e-bookstore application developed by Flagship Projects with a wide Pan Arab repertoire of books, was among the top winners at the World Summit Award Mobile (WSA-Mobile) 2011 competition which attracted 460 entries from 105 countries.
Multi-channel and multi-device content for savvy citizens and creative use of biometric, wireless and conventional services are the hallmarks of the stellar products which are announced as this year’s winners of the UN based World Summit Award (WSA).
Rufoof from UAE has made it to the group of outstanding best-practise developments and therefore declared WSA winner.
As part of the UN activities following the World Summit on the Information society, the WSA recognizes the outstanding achievements of content designers and application producers in eight categories. It started in 2003 and will continue until the UN review in 2015.
“All those winning the WSA, from Colombia to India and from Ghana to Lithuania to the Arab world, can be proud as they have shown that great digital contents are produced all over the world and as they have won against over 460 other competitors for this price,” states Prof. Dr. Peter A. Bruck, Chairman of the World Summit Award Board of Directors.
Shadi Hasan, Managing Director of Flagship Projects, said: “We are delighted to win this UN-endorsed award in a competition involving 460 global entries. What makes us even more proud is the fact that we represented the UAE in this global contest. This world-class mobile application is one of the prominent Arabic apps on the app store.”
Flagship aggressively promoted Rufoof for major ICT vendors which are looking at the revolutionary application as the ultimate reading experience on smart phones and iPads in the Arab world. Shadi added: “Through Rufoof, Flagship is showcasing its best expertise and the ability to develop creative professional content for the local and regional market.”
Steps to enjoy the reading experience with Rufoof are very easy. Users can go to the application and view a wide range of book titles in different categories so they can download books and have them available even when the device is offline.
Another feature of the application is reading through bookmarked pages, search and change the font size as well as changing the colour of the shelves.
The language of Rufoof is 70% Arabic and 30% English. The platform is compatible with iPhone, iPad and will be soon on many more other devices.
Hasan added: “Books at Rufoof are much cheaper than the hard copy versions with lots of free contents. One of the dynamic interactive features of Rufoof is the simplicity in using content. Moreover, books are carefully picked, monitored and controlled by Flagship.”
With Rufoof, authors' and publishers' books are more piracy protected, due to the high security features deployed by Flagship team of software developers.
Hasan said: “Using the international ePub standard format for eBooks, Rufoof is the ideal platform for Arab audience to buy, read, surf all sort of books from our library of thousands of books already in place.”
Hasan added: “Flagship is one of the earliest providers of solutions for this rapidly expanding smart phone market. We provide high-end smart phone platforms and develop applications for organisations seeking to execute products on mobile devices. Our applications target iPhone, Android, RIM, Windows Mobile 7and other devices available in the market.”
He added: “The award honors outstanding, creative and innovative m-Content and we are happy to be part of them. The World Summit Award is a global initiative on e- and m-content of the United Nations and its Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UN GAID), held in collaboration with UNESCO and UNIDO.”
“Developing such applications in the UAE is a clear proof that the country occupies an important position in the world of technology, and Flagship is proud of its achievements with the support of its creative staff,” Hasan said.
Winners will present their outstanding products and projects, network with business partners and meet other experts in the field of ICT at the WSA 2011 Winners Events in Egypt, later this year.
Europe hosts the most of the world’s best in e-Content and Creativity - 18 winning projects. China, India, New Zealand and Singapore won 2 awards each by producing superior websites, content rich apps or creative digital content. Egypt, famous for its new media revolution, takes home one World Summit Award.
The Winners were decided on by a prestigious Grand Jury in Hong Kong. Jury members come from all continents and have backgrounds in the creative industries, telecommunication, advertising, journalism and research, as well as in teaching.
They evaluated the over 460 submissions from 105 countries on the basis of content and creativity. Each UN Member State can only nominate one product per category to the World Summit Award and thus, a lot of countries organise national pre-selection awards prior to the international jury.
For more information:
WORLD SUMMIT AWARD
c/o ICNM – International Center for New Media
Moosstrasse 43a | 5020 Salzburg | Austria
Tel: +43-662-630408
Email: wsa@icnm.net
Website: www.wsis-award.org
Posted by
VMD - [Virtual Marketing Department]
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