UK Best Practice Celebrated at Nominet?s Internet Awards. 2010 Winners: The Northern Grid for Learning, Beatbullying, British Library, SignTranslate, ACE IT, Childnet International

08/07/2010

Charities and public sector organisations led the charge at last night's Internet Awards ceremony. Successful entrants were recognised for their exemplary work in making the Internet a more secure, open, accessible or diverse experience.

The winners will be promoted in the UK and internationally as examples of best practice, including at the next international Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania on 14th September 2010.
 
This year’s winners include a variety of world-class projects from SignTranslate, a small organisation that has created communication tools that enable medical professionals to communicate with non-English speakers, to the British Library, which has developed an interactive timeline allowing users to explore history.

The categories and respective winners are:

Getting People Online: The Northern Grid for Learning works with pupils, teachers, parents and carers to support their use of the Internet by providing training on e-safety and e-security as well as technical support.

Making the Internet Safer: Beatbullying – CyberMentors is a unique, safe, youth-branded social networking site that offer young people peer and professional support and advice on cyberbullying, bullying or wellbeing issues.

Opening the World of Knowledge: British Library – Timelines: Sources from History is a ground-breaking, rich-media interactive timeline that allows users to explore British Library collection items chronologically, from medieval times to the present day.

Empowering Young People and Citizens: SignTranslate is a set of innovative web-based communication tools that allow medical staff to communicate with non-English speaking patients.

Nurturing Powerful Local Partnerships: ACE IT – Moose in the Hoose is a project aimed at introducing the benefits of computers and the Internet to those living in care homes and attending day centres across Edinburgh.

Special Award for International Engagement: Childnet International – Youth IGF Project captured the thoughts and opinions of young people in the UK on film and took it to the IGF, convening a workshop alongside the Egyptian Cyber Peace Initiative

The Rt Hon Alun Michael MP, Chair of the judges, said: "I am proud to be celebrating so many examples of best practice within the UK Internet industry.  This year we were delighted to receive a huge number of high quality entries.  Narrowing these down to a shortlist and selecting the winners was a big challenge.  Indeed I want to congratulate all the shortlisted entrants, as they are all worthy winners."

Lesley Cowley, CEO at Nominet says: "This year’s entries demonstrate that organisations and individuals are more engaged than ever in making the Internet a safe and accessible place for everyone. The level and quality of projects was outstanding and show that the Internet industry in the UK is leading the world in addressing important issues such as digital inclusion and safety online."

Also available:

• Our NIA 2010 brochure for further information on individual winners and runners up is available.
• Video content and photography - issued on request.

Notes to Editors

About Nominet

Nominet operates at the heart of e-commerce in the UK, running one of the world’s largest Internet registries and managing over eight million domain names. Nominet maintains the register of .uk domain names and runs the DNS infrastructure that keeps .uk working.

It runs the technology that locates a computer in the Internet hosting the web site or email system you’re looking for when you type in a web address or send an email to an address that ends in .uk.

Nominet is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee that has members not shareholders, pays no dividends and its charges only cover its running costs. Anyone with an interest in the Internet may become a member. Nominet has over 2,800 members representing all areas of the Internet industry.
 
Nominet also runs the Tier 1 registry for UK ENUM, a new UK registry service that combines telephone numbers and the Domain Name System to simplify the way telephone calls over the Internet work.  ENUM lets callers know that you can receive VoIP calls – it allows more VoIP calls to be connected directly over the Internet, for no charge, rather than via the traditional PSTN network.

About the Internet Governance Forum

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was established by the United Nations to accommodate comprehensive multi–stakeholder policy dialogue in the field of Internet governance. It aims to bring together all stakeholders in the Internet governance debate each year, whether they represent states, the private sector or civil society, on an equal basis and through an open and inclusive process.


For further information, please contact:
Alice Jackson or Alex Bishop at Racepoint Group
Tel: 020 8811 2474
Email: nominet@racepointgroup.co.uk    

An archive of press releases is available for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.