Winners of the Golden Crest 2003 Competition

03/25/2003, 10:15

The following accepted the awards granted in the fifth Golden Crest Competition (http://zlatyerb.obce.cz) for the best website of municipalities and regions at the ISSS conference on Monday 24 March 2003:

The Towns & Cities Category

The Villages Category

The Regions Category

Special prizes were also awarded

Special Prize for the best barrier-free access to website

The Special Prize of the Ministry of the Interior, awarded by Stanislav Gross, Minister of the Interior, for the best barrier-free access to website in the Golden Crest 2003 Competition.

Awarded to: Bludov (http://bludov.zde.cz), Středočeský Region, District of Kutná Hora

General Public’s Prize

The General Public’s Prize awarded by the BMI Association in the Golden Crest 2003 Competition.

Awarded to: Mikroregion Sdružení růže [The Association of the Rose Micro-region] (http://www.sdruzeniruze.cz)

Considering the balanced scores, the expert jury decided to award two first place and three second place ratings.

The main prizes are sponsored by Microsoft and Olympus. The other prizes are sponsored by Velebný a FAM, VLTAVA-LABE-PRESS, Vydavatelství IDG, and ANOPRESS. The media partner is the MojeNoviny.cz server.

The Ministry for Information Technologies of the Czech Republic declares the Golden Crest 2003 Competition under the personal auspices of Vladimír Mlynář, Minister. Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic and the Association of Municipalities are the co-organisers. Sdružení Goldebn Crest organises the competition in co-operation with the Města a obce online portal. The competition is part of the initiatives of the "March--The Month of the Internet" campaign. The winners will be announced at a ceremony during a social gathering organised as part of the ISSS Conference in the evening of 24 March 2003.

This is one of the world’s first competitions of its kind and it has been appreciated as a finalist of the worldwide Stockholm Challenge Award. Every year, it attracts the attention of thousands of Internet users, mayors and webmasters, thereby helping to improve eGovernment, i.e. public administration’s communication over the Internet.

The competition has three categories again:

1. Towns & Cities
2. Villages
3. Regions, Associations, Provinces

Primarily the content and the artistic level of websites are assessed, and their benefits for selected groups of users. A precondition for success is to meet the requirements of Act No. 106/1999 on free access to information and the ISVS 7/2001 Standard. Good ideas and above-standard information are particularly appreciated. Participation in the Golden Crest Competition is free of charge.

One of the new features in the fifth year of the competition is the 0^th regional round in two Regions: Vysočina and the Plzeňský Region.

Citizens -- Internet users may also vote. In fact, they can support their favourite in the contest for the General Public's Prize by sending the nomination from the Města a obce online portal (http://mesta.obce.cz).

The general public sent in almost 3,000 valid votes.

An overview of all of this year’s contestants, i. e. 204 towns and cities, villages, and regions is available at the competition’s website at http://zlatyerb.obce.cz. The competition is known for its maximum openness following the law on free access to information: all scores awarded by all the jurors, contestants and the general public are publicised.