Vic student wins international award
© VicNews, August 2, 1999. Vol 9: No 6, by Catriona Barclay.

A web site designed by VUW student Brian Brown took a prestigious international award in June when it beat 33 other entries to win the Lifelong Learning section of the Global Bangemann Challenge.

Brian, now a Central Institute of Technology lecturer, received the award in Sweden for an Internet project he created which provides students with a free set of self-training guides on a range of IT subjects.

The project began five years ago when Brian put his course notes on the web to enable local students to access course material for classes they had missed. Soon word got out and web users around the world were accessing Brian's course notes. Since then the site has had as many as 25,000 unique visitors a week and 150 universities have sought permission to use the material.

The Global Bangemann Challenge stems from a report issued to the European Union by Dr Martin Bangemann in 1994 which stated that European countries were not doing enough to promote information technology. Sweden responded by issuing a challenge to all European countries and set up a competition to showcase European IT projects.

The competition was then opened up to other countries and became a global challenge in 1998.

Brian refers to the challenge as the "America's Cup of IT" as it is the only international award of its kind for IT.

Entries in the Global Bangemann Challenge had to show citizen-orientated applications of IT. Each entry was supported by a city and evaluated by an international panel of 20 worldwide experts for its positive impact on people, society and the environment. Upper Hutt City supported Brian's entry.

Once he received notification that he was one of five finalists in the Lifelong Learning category, Brian flew to the awards ceremony in Sweden. The ceremony was held in Nobel Hall and had all the pageantry of a royal event. Brian was stunned to receive the award from his majesty the King of Sweden in front of 1000 international guests.

Brian has now put the pomp and ceremony behind him to focus on completing a research project for his MComms at Victoria. He believes his studies have contributed to his win, as they have helped him develop the necessary skills to redesign his site and eliminate non-essential content. Catriona Barclay.