World Summit Awards


The World Summit Awards is an international competition which aims to select and promote the world’s best startup companies in digital content and innovative applications. It has been founded in the framework of the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society, mandated by the WSIS Plan of Action, and cooperates with UNESCO and UNIDO., and is organized by the International Center for New Media, Salzburg, Austria.
It, as of 2017, involves representatives from 178 countries on each continent.

Categories

Every year, five projects are awarded in each the categories. The categories derive from the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society, UN Geneva Agenda and the Tunis Action Plan and, as of 2017, are as follows:
WSA has a network of national representatives that expands over 170 countries. Their task is to scout the national ICT markets for suitable applications due to the evaluation criteria of the WSA. In some countries, the national representatives hold official national pre-selection competitions.

Grand Jury

A Jury of international experts evaluates and selects the best 5 projects in each category. The jury process is a moderated, democratic vote in two stages, typically held as grand jury events about two month before the winners events and the Congress.

Global Congress

The WSA hold every year a 3-day congress. The event embraces an e-content related conference program and an award ceremony. The final gala includes the winners award ceremony.

Global Champions

At the WSA Congress and accompanying gala ceremony, out of the five winners in each category one global champion is awarded. The selection process relies on a jury process of national experts. On the occasion of the WSIS+10 review held in Paris in February 2013, a special online jury evaluated all 200 winning projects of WSA’s 10-year history and selected eight all-time global champions.