São Paulo – Application Apontador Traffic (Apontador Trânsito), an information service for traffic in the cities of Belo Horizonte, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, should receive an award next Tuesday (6), in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The Brazilian project is one of those chosen in the m-Media and News category of the World Summit Award (WSA) Mobile Content, an award for electronic applications for information and communications technology (ICT), whose global meeting should take place from December 5th to 8th, in the Arab country.
Apontador Traffic, alongside other Brazilian initiatives in the area, was invited by WSA to compete for the award. The organisation has specialists in several countries who select candidates. According to Rafael Siqueira, the technology director and founder of Apontador, the application was considered one of the most innovative in the competition. Among the Brazilians, it was also the only winner.
Siqueira heard about the result some three weeks ago and should receive the award in Abu Dhabi, next week. The technology director explained that Apontador Traffic was chosen for its content and concept. The service offers information about the traffic on streets and avenues in the cities of São Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro. The information may be viewed on iPhones, iPods or even television sets connected to the Internet. The information shown includes traffic jams and even images of specific parts of the city.
The WSA elects the five best initiatives in eight categories. Apontador Traffic was one of the initiatives chosen in m-Media and News. The others were projects in Australia, the United Kingdom, Finland and Russia. Other applications chosen were in the areas of Business & Commerce, Government & Participation, Learning & Education, Entertainment & Lifestyle, Tourism & Culture, Environment & Health as well as Inclusion & Empowerment. Among the Arabs there were winners from Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and the Emirates.
According to figures supplied by WSA, topics evaluated were content, interface, interactivity, concept and technical development. The objective of the initiative is for the best and most innovative projects for electronic content and for the areas of information and communications technology and promotes them globally. WSA was established in 2003, in the scope of the United Nations (UN) World Summit on the Information Society and is organized by a global network of collaborators in over 160 member countries.
*Translated by Mark Ament
