Wateen Follows Footsteps of Punjab Gov, Distributes Laptops among Winners of PITB’s Ideas Hunt Contest

By Ahmed Ali

Wateen Telecom has followed the footsteps of the Punjab government and distributed laptops to the winners of the Ideas Hunt Competition for e-Governance held by the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB).

Wateen Telecom claims to give away latest Laptops to the winners of the competition where Anwar Khan (Head of Consumer Sales Wateen Telecom), represented the company and distributed prizes and certificates amongst the winners.

The Ideas Hunt Competition was a part of the e-Governance exhibition for the IT industry commentators, academia, government departments and public at large, held at the Arfa Technology Park from April 28 – 29, 2012.  The objective of the event was to create awareness amongst the public and other stakeholders about the IT based good governance projects of the Government of Punjab.

The e-Governance Ideas Hunt Competition was held among students and citizens which attracted an astounding 570 ideas from citizens about how technology can be used to enhance governance and transparency in the public sector. There were 44 departments that the ideas were written in support of, which included Health, Education, Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Agriculture, Local Government, Food, Revenue, Irrigation and Population Welfare, among others. The top five departments that received the most ideas were:

•           Higher Education (54)

•           Energy (50)

•           Transport (43)

•           School Education (42)

•           and Health (37)

The ideas were eventually narrowed down to 12 finalists by a panel of well-reputed technologists that included: Dr. Shafay Shamail, Vice Provost and Associate Professor, LUMS; Dr. Sarmad Hussain, Associate Professor, KICS, UET; and Jehan Ara, President of P@SHA.

The authors of the shortlisted 12 ideas were then invited to give a presentation at PITB and the winners were selected based on criterion such as utilization of citizen services, uniqueness of the idea, and how focused and comprehensive the proposed solution was to the problem. The first prize was awarded to two ideas namely Electronic Health Record and Learning Management System, second prize was given for Punjab Civic Engagement Initiative and Direct Messaging to Ministers, Issuance of Certificates and Funding Transparency via SMS won consolation prizes.

First Place Prizes:

•           Electronic Health Record – making it compulsory for doctors to use an Electronic Health Record to enhance patient care, streamline data, maintain a patient’s complete health record, and make his or her medical information accessible by healthcare professionals anywhere at any time, and handle all emergency cases effectively.

•           Learning Management System – trains and monitors over 300,000 teachers in the Punjab for better instruction delivery and monitoring and evaluation.

Second Place Prize:

•           Punjab Civic Engagement Initiative – an online portal to be developed for students to scope volunteer opportunities, as well as create a centralized database that logs volunteer hours, giving way for them to be recognized and rewarded by the public sector for doing so.

Consolation Prizes:

•           Direct Messaging to Ministers – creating a website that allows citizens to highlight issues of their constituencies and directly send messages to their respective MPAs and MNAs.

•           Issuance of Certificates – issuing certificates related to marriage, domicile, income, employment, social welfare pensions, court case listing.

•           Funding Transparency via SMS – SMS system whereby citizens will be notified of the funding allocation done by public administrators