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SABC-Highway Africa calls for award nominations

7 Aug 2009

The 2009 Highway Africa Conference, from 6 - 8 September 2009, at Rhodes University, Eastern Cape, South Africa is set to host the eighth edition of the SABC-Highway Africa New Media Awards. Nominations are open for the awards as well as the Highway Africa-OSIWA ICT Journalism Awards.

The SABC-Highway Africa New Media Awards aims to highlight the role that digital technologies play in journalism and the media in Africa and rewards pioneering, innovative and creative use of technology in doing journalism that serves Africa and its citizens.

Nominations are open in three categories:

Individual/Student - awarded to individual persons who design or appropriate new affordable applications of communication technologies to overcome the limitations of existing infrastructure and/or capital resources.

Not-for-Profit - awarded to users of appropriate media technology to advance and assist communities and persons limited by infrastructure and/or technological access.

Corporate - awarded to corporate groups for creative and appropriate adaptation of technologies within the continent to complete effectively in the wider environment.

Open Society Institute of West Africa (OSIWA) ICT Journalism Awards

In partnership with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) five new categories have been added to the Highway Africa-OSIWA ICT Journalism Awards. The awards aims to encourage media professionals to produce well-researched and informed stories on ICT usage and policies and encourage innovative use of new media in journalism in Africa.

The categories are:

Best story on ICT use in communities
Best Woman ICT reporter
Best story on ICT policies in West Africa
Best story on ICT and public governance
Best story on ICT use by media

Entries in these categories are restricted to entries from West Africa (both Anglophone and Francophone).

Broad criteria for entries:

The judges will consider the use of new media technologies to:

advance press freedom on the continent
encourage social empowerment amongst marginalised communities
highlight innovative and creative applications of global technology for the benefit of the continent's overall media development

Technical requirements for all entries:

Digital/Online platform must be functional and updated
Multimedia components, print, web and post
Aesthetic appeal (creative use of limited resources)
Stories should have been published in the period August 2008 and July 2009
Please supply details of the media in which article will have been published
The judges' decision is final and no correspondence will be entertained after the closing date and when the final announcements are made
Highway Africa reserves the right not to award prizes in any category.

Submissions must be made to copied to .

The closing date for the nominations is 21 August 2009, 4:30pm Pretoria time. Winners will be announced at the SABC-Highway Africa Awards ceremony on the evening of Tuesday, 8 September 2009.

For more information, email .

For more information on Highway Africa, go to the Friends of Highway Africa Facebook group, view the Highway Africa blog, follow Highway Africa on Twitter at HighwayAfrica09 or go to www.highwayafrica.com.