WSA Belgium
During the World Summit Award (WSA) Gala in Monterrey - Mexico the result of several months of work has been awarded to the 40 best e-Content projects across the world. As of today, 168 countries are actively involved in the WSA, which was started as an Austrian initiative in 2003 in the Framework of the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). In 2009, it will be the forth time that WSA will select, showcase and celebrate the most outstanding local e-Content and innovative internet applications.
The Belgian World Summit Award is the pre-selection contest for the World Summit Award. In 2005 Belgium participated actively in this process by selecting 7 best of Belgium and nominated them for a world award. During the grand jury session in Bahrain, in which the Belgian representative participated, the 40 best for 2005 were elected by 34 jurors from 32 different countries. 2 projects got into the last round (best 9) but no Belgian project could obtain the marvellous award.
Having missed the WSA 2007 edition, I was impatient to bring to the world knowledge a few very good e-Content projects from Belgium. Not so easy to convince good projects and especially their conceiver’s to participate in such an international contest. 34 jurors, gathered together in New Delhi – India, had again the task to select out of about 1.000 projects the 5 best for each of the 8 categories in the 
WSA. Among the 5 best of the category e-Entertainment we find a Belgian nomination : MyMachine. No, I did not vote, and yes, I was one of the 34 jurors. When a project is part of the top 9, the jurors from that country have to leave the room and can’t in no case influence the voting. MyMachine obtained the highest ranking in their category. The first time a Belgian project got through.
Thanks to the generous invitation of the Mexican partner under the leadership of Mr. Ramón Alberto Garza of Indigo Brainmedia, in 2009 the World Summit Award (WSA) hold its events to promote the world’s best e-Content in the City of Monterrey. MyMachine was among them … more detailed information can be found on http://www.wsa-belgium.be or http://www.wsis-award.org. Of course the link to the Belgian project is http://www.mymachine.be