Qatar’s Open Data Portal of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) has secured the 2020 World Summit on Information Society (WSIS 2020) award for e-Science.
The honor which was announced in the opening activities of the last week of the WSIS 2020 organized by the International Telecommunication Union serves as an international recognition for the digital progress achieved by the State within the Qatar Digital Government strategy.
while praising Qatar for winning the award, Acting Assistant Undersecretary for Information Technology Affairs at the MoTC Mashael Ali al-Hammadi said that the award is an indication of its progress in improving its online services provided to the public, facilitating it in the cyberspace, and getting rid of the restrictions of time and place, wishing for the permanent presence of Qatar’s digital government projects and programs on the coronation platforms to raise Qatar’s name high in international forums.
Three other Qatari projects which gained recognition were:
“Centralised Connectivity in the Schools Network” at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.
“Open Data” portal under the MoTC
The multilingual e-contract system project — the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs.
World Summit on Information Society 2020
The World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) 2020 is held virtually, under the slogan “promoting digital transformation and global partnerships: WSIS action lines to achieve sustainable development goal.”
The initiative is organized in co-operation between the International Telecommunication Union and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in close co-operation with all the facilitators participating in the WSIS Action Line.
The WSIS Prizes competition is open to all stakeholders: governments, companies, civil society, international organizations, academia, and others. The competition includes 18 categories that are directly related to the WSIS Action Lines.
MoTC’s Qatar Open Data Portal
The Ministry of Transport and Communications’ “Qatar Open Data Portal” was launched to facilitate the process of disseminating government data on the Internet through a single national platform, making it available to the public, and appropriately ensuring its quality and provision and according to international standards followed in this field.
Several government agencies share their data through the portal, and it is expected that all government agencies will join and participate in the portal to build a more efficient, open, and transparent government.
This data represents a huge wealth, especially government sector data, which is the main source for official statistics, due to the amount of data collected as well as its central importance.
The MoTC is keen to make this data available online so that it can be used in an innovative way to create useful tools to support and develop business, facilitate public services, and restructure administrative procedures.
