Winners of the 2011 Technology in Government Africa (TIGA) in the “ICTs in Education” sector have been announced. The awards ceremony was held today at the ongoing sixth e-Learning Africa conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. TIGA awards celebrate the commitment of African governments to e-Government (electronic government) that includes digital interaction between governments and citizens (G2C), government to business (G2B) and between government agencies (G2G).
There were 89 applicants for the 2011 TIGA awards with 44 projects short-listed from 24 countries. 9 winners from Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali,. Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal under three other categories were announced and awarded on the 2nd of May in Addis Ababa. Entries has grown 40% from 36 entries in 2007 and 60 entries in 2009.
Other categories in the TIGA awards include Public service delivery to citizens that demonstrate the use of ICT applications to revolutionise service delivery by the public sector, health services for the use of ICT for basic health services and economic and financial e-Services which focuses on the services between the government and the business community.

Winners in the public service delivery category include Rwanda’s eSoko project (http://www.esoko.gov.rw), Mauritius Government Online centre for Enhanced Public Service Delivery (http://www.gov.mu) and Kenya’s free and open access to public legal information (http://www.kenyalaw.org). Health service category winners include Mali’s Frontline SMS infant program (http://www.sante.gov.ml/) , Kenya’s National medicine quality system (http://www.mpedigree.net) and Cameroon’s telemedicine project http://www.genesistelecare.com/. Economic and financial services winners were Senegal’s eTrade Africa (http://www.etradeafrica.com), Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety program (http://www.swglobal.com/) and Ethiopia’s Online Registration and Placement Software (http://mcit.gov.et/).

In a speech read by Thierry Amoussougbo , regional advisor with United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), on behalf of Abdouile Janneh , executive secretary (UNECA) said that the awards were important given that adoption of ICTs in Education in Africa still lagged behind those of other continents. Janneh also thanked the Finnish government for their supports in the awards.

The next TIGA awards in 2013 will feature a new G-Government (Geospatial Government) category that will recognise the use of Internet and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) in making the delivery of services more effective by governments.

Winning projects inlcude “The Speaking Book” from South Africa, “Dr. Math” also from South Africa , “eLimika e-learning programme from the Kenya Institute of Education and “Plate-forme de formation a distance de l’Academia Aberta de Angola” from Angola. Prizes have no ranking and are arranged in order of project submission. The Speaking Book aims to make education about critical issues accessible to all regardless of literacy or education level. The project produces speaking books available at http://www.booksofhope.com/ . Dr. Math (http://csir.co.za/) is a mobile tutoring service that provides access to on demand tutoring in Mathematics. eLimika (http://elimika.ac.ke/) is a delivery channel for KIE;s courses and Plate-forme de formation a distance de l’Academia Aberta de Angola (http://www.academia-aberta.com/) is a training platform of the Open Academy of Angola to provide a distance learning channel.