Zim ICT Ministry calls for ICT Achievers Award nominations

The Zim ICT Ministry will this year host the second annual ICT Achievers awards. The awards reward Zimbabweans and Zimbabwean businesses whose involvement in Zimbabwe’s ICT industry has been outstanding. The date of the event is 3 December 2011.

Over the past week, the ICT Ministry has been calling for nominations of the ICT Achievers of the year through the local print press. While last year’s awards only had 7 categories, the categories have been increased to 15 this year.

Here are the categories:

1. Top ICT project of the year (private sector)
2. Top ICT project of the year (public sector)
3. Top NGO promoter of ICT
4. ICT businessman of the year
5. ICT businesswoman of the year
6. ICT company of the year
7. Web developer of the year (individual or company)
8. Public sector website of the year
9. ICT journalist of the year
10. Young ICT innovator of the year
11. ICT educator of the year (individual or company)
12. Top ICT company on corporate and social responsibility
13. ICT rural school of the year
14. ICT personality of the year
15. Top ICT user minister

To nominate, one needs to download forms from two websites noted in the adverts; www.ictachieversawards.org.zw and www.ictministry.gov.zw. One can also visit the ICT Ministry offices in Harare (Bank Chambers building on the 7^th floor, along Samora Machel) to get the forms, fill them and submit physically. Nominations close on 15 November.

The sad part of all this

Even though the adverts have been running for a while in the press, the address www.ictachieversawards.org.zw is currently not available on the internet. In fact, that domain is not even registered. And as for www.ictministry.gov.zw, the links to the nomination forms just don’t work. So, the only way to nominate a business or an individual for the awards is to visit the ministry’s offices. Quite ironic for an ICT ministry. We notified the ministry about this and they promised to attend to it. 

But that’s not all, the ICT ministry is using last year’s logo for the nomination adverts. They couldn’t get someone to do a current one? There are thousands of graphics designers that can quickly update a logo with the correct year. It’s not just sad, its extremely annoying.