Remmy Nweke bags AISI-05 award

First Nigerian continental Siemens Profile award winner, Mr. Remmy Nweke, has bagged another award at this year’s African Information Society Initiative (AISI) awards.

Organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) under its outreach programme, AISI awards tend to promote Information and Communications Technology (ICT) within the media, since 2003.

Mr. Nweke, a Senior Reporter with Daily Champion Newspapers, specializing on Information and Communications Technology (ICT), is also the Nigerian pioneer editorial nominee of the Highway Africa News Agency (HANA) based in Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.
Mr. Nweke was earlier this year in Midrad, South Africa, at the inaugural African Siemens Profile awards, honoured for journalistic excellence in reporting science and technology in the Information Technology (IT) business solution category for 2004.

In a congratulatory letter on behalf of the organizers, ECA and their partners for the 2005 AISI media awards, the Officer-in-charge of Development Information Services Division (DISD) at ECA, Ms Aida Opoku-Mensah, said, she was delighted to inform Mr. Nweke of his selection.

She said that the selection was in the second prizewinner under the 2005 AISI and International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) category of the Local Content Applications.

“I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected as Second Prize winner under the 2005 AISI/IICD Local Content Applications Category. Congratulations!” she stated in the letter.

According to her, AISI media awards were introduced in 2003 to encourage more informed coverage of the information society and ICT for development issues in Africa as part of ECA’s Information Society Outreach and Communication Programme.

The awards are aimed at individual journalists and media institutions based in Africa that are promoting journalism which contributes to a better understanding of the information society in Africa.

She noted that the programme is currently supported by the International Development Research Center (IDRC), the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), the Open Society Initiative for Western Africa (OSIWA) and the Deutsche Deutsche Gesellschaft Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ).

She also said the award ceremony will take place on Tuesday, 13 September at the Highway Africa Conference scheduled to take place in Grahamstown, South Africa, from 12 to 19 September 2005.