Kuwaiti emir attends Sheikh Salem al-Ali Informatics Award

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah sponsored and attended the ceremony held Wednesday at Bayan Palace to honor the winners of the 14th edition of His Highness Sheikh Salem Al-Ali Informatics Award.
His Highness the Amir was warmly received at the avenue by Head of the Award's Board of Trustees Sheikha Aida Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah and members of the organizing committee.
The ceremony was also attended by His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim, former National Assembly speaker Jassim Mohammad Al-Kharafi, senior Sheikhs, His Highness Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, Deputy Minister of Amiri Diwan Affairs Sheikh Ali Jarrah Al-Sabah, and senior officials.
The ceremony began with playing the national anthem, and then reciting verses of the holy Quran.
Afterwards, Sheikha Aida gave a speech in which she highlighted the importance of the award in building a society of knowledge and creativity as well as in elevating the name of Kuwait high.
She also expressed gratitude for His Highness the Amir's patronage of the award and voiced pride of the recent UN honoring and proclamation of His Highness the Amir as a "Humanitarian Leader" and of Kuwait as a "Humanitarian center".
Then a documentary about the UN honoring of the His Highness the Amir was displayed.
Member of the Award's Higher Organizing Committee Hassan Al-Hamadi said that the His Highness Sheikh Salem Al-Ali Award is keen on delivering its mission of encouraging creativity and excellence in information technology.
The Award is playing an important role in the development of society and spreading of knowledge, he added.
He noted that among the winners of this edition is the American engineer Steven J. Sasson who invented the digital camera in 1975.
For his part, Sasson voiced appreciation of Kuwait, His Highness Amir and the Award's Organizing Committee for honoring him.
Organizing Committee Member Bassam Al-Shimmeri also delivered a speech highlighting the main stages in the history of the award and its development.
He pointed out that this year's edition board of jurists, which comprises 11 Arab figures, including four representing the e-governments of the UAE, Oman, Kuwait and Jordan, along with four others from Arab research and academic institutions. It also includes two from Kuwait, one from Saudi Arabia and another from Egypt, in addition to three others of civil associations from Tunisia, Bahrain and Palestine.
He added that ten winners of the award will be honored for best websites and applications in the Arab world, including five with the mostly browsed websites in the Arab countries, along with five of leading smart applications.
The top websites' winners are the e-government of Bahrain, the Qatari airways, a Jordanian medical website (WebTab), Al-Jazeera News Network (Al-Jazeera net) and Abu Dhabi's e-government portal.
He noted the winners of the best applications, topped by the Jordanian medical app WebTab, Dubai police app, a Kuwaiti personalized news feed (Nabd) app, the UAE transport department app and the Saudi University of Kind Saud's Ayat Al-Quran app.
Then His Highness the Amir handed the winners their awards and expressed them more success and prominence.
The event concluded with granting an honorary shield to the sponsor of the ceremony, His Highness the Amir.