CIT duo collect Internet challenge award

	Sign In Sign-Up

An Internet project developed by CIT's principal lecturer in information technology Brian Brown has won a prestigious worldwide award.

Mr Brown and CIT chief executive Trevor Boyle travelled to Sweden recently to collect the lifelong Learning award of the Global Bangemann Challenge.

The challenge grew out of a report which Dr Martin Bangemann presented to the European Union on Europe's future in information technology (IT). Sweden launched an information technology challenge in 1997, inviting European cities to nominate their finest IT projects.

The challenge was then broadened to take in the whole world, and this year's awards were the first on a global scale.

Entries had to show the citizen-orientated applications of IT, with the level of technology itself not being a factor, and each entry had to have the support of a city.

Upper Hutt City Council put its support behind Mr Brown's project, which originally designed as an online teaching tool for CIT IT students. How-ever, it soon became a tool used by students all around the world, its simple, self-paced self-tested learning experience attracting around 25,000 visitors a week.

The five finalists in the Lifelong Learning section were from the United States, England and Belgium, while entries which did not make the finals were from Germany, Malta, Sweden, England, Ireland, Italy, India, Canada, China, Austria, Spain and Australia.

Mr Boyle said the awards ceremony was very lavish, with around 1000 international guests hosted by the King of Sweden and Mayor of Stockholm in the "Gold Room" of the Stockholm City Hall.

"It's called the Gold Room because the walls are actually lined with gold," he sald.

Mr Boyle acknowledged Mr Brown's achievement, describing it as "recognition at the world level for [his] talent and very long and sustained hard work".

Mayor Rex Kirton also offered his congratulations, saying the award reflected the high calibre of study and research done at CIT.

Mr Brown said when he accepted the award, the ceremony for which was shown live on Swedish television and over the Internet, he was conscious of the fact that he was representing CIT and Upper Hutt.

"We weren't particularly sure that we would win, because the other entries were of a very high standard."