A WEB site designed by Central Institute of Technology lecturer Brian Brown beat 33 other entries to win an international Internet award earlier this month.

Mr Brown travelled to Stockholm, Sweden, knowing only that he was one of five finalists in the Global Bangemann Challenge's Life-long Learning category, and aware of the high calibre of other entries.

He says winning the award opens up new opportunities for the CIT and for his site, Life Long Learning on the World Wide Web, which provides self-study guides on computing topics.

Judges told him the CIT entry won because it was global in scope, focusing on educating people anywhere in the world rather than in one community of interest. The Life Long Learning site was designed for internal IT students, but attracts about 25,000 visitors each week from around the world.

Mr Brown says the CIT site has been making money for several years through selling the guide on CD-Rom, though the information is free on the Internet.

Because it is self-supporting, development will continue, though Mr Brown says CIT would be able to make more money if it could enrol distance international students, which government policy does not allow.

More than 700 entries, including 10 from New Zealand, were received for the Global Bangemann Challenge's 11 categories.

Other New Zealand finalists included the Interlink Project for Schools, which linked 24 schools in New Zealand and Britain from March to July 1997, and was one of 17 finalists in the IT in Education category.