Dubai eGovernment today (Thursday August 21, 2008) announced the winners of Modhesh Friends Forum, a competition it has been organizing every year during Dubai Summer Surprises (DSS), at a glittering awards ceremony held in Modhesh Fun City. This year, the competition generated a record 45,789 posts from 1,183 members on the English and Arabic online discussion forums at www.emodhesh.ae. In addition to comments related to particular threads, participants in Modhesh Friends Forum 2008 could send in photographs and graphics pertaining to a given topic, including Ramadan greeting cards.
In all, 14 prizes were distributed during the awards ceremony. Samiha Mirza Asad was adjudged winner for her article titled ‘How to spend a fruitful vacation in summer’; while the four winners for the post titled ‘My journey across the UAE’, were Hamda Abdullah Bani Yas, Abdulhamid Mohammed Saleh, Mohammed Mirza Asad and Fatma Mohammed Haji. The prizes for the ‘Best Modhesh Fun City Photograph’ were presented to Mohamed Maan Fadhel, Omar Mohamed Haji, Ibtisam Abdallah Hussein and Maliha Muhammad Malik. The five winners for the ‘Modhesh Ramadan Greeting Card’ contest were Nora Ali Al Mutawa, Mohammed Ahmed Al Madhani, Sarah Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, Ibtisam Ali Al Mutawa and Sharifa Al Mutawa.
“The Modhesh Friends Forum has once again emerged as one of the most popular activities during Dubai Summer Surprises, especially because it is entertaining and educational at the same time. The various topics that serve as discussion points for the forum are designed to help participants express themselves freely and creatively,” said Salem Al Shair, eServices Director, Dubai eGovernment.
“On behalf of Dubai eGovernment I congratulate the winners of this year’s forum and I also thank all the participants for their enthusiastic involvement that has contributed to the success and popularity of this activity,” he added.
The Modhesh Friends Forum, which is open to participants between the ages 9 and 18, also gives an opportunity to chat with the friendly DSS mascot, Modhesh. Topics discussed at the forum range from fashion, cooking, UAE’s visionary leaders, Islam and video games to sports, entertainment and hobbies.
Last year as well, the Modhesh Friends Forum turned out to be one of the most popular events for children during DSS. The Forum received over 40,000 inputs from more than 1,000 registered users last DSS. The Modhesh Friends Forum is linked to the official DSS website and also to the official DSS events schedule. The format of the Forum is designed not only to ensure maximum participation from children in various categories; it also rewards participants who have demonstrated their knowledge in a particular subject, by appointing them as moderators for a specific forum. Moderators oversee the forum they are in charge of, and they are authorised to edit, delete and move posts as and when required.
Dubai eGovernment is a pioneering initiative in the region to provide online services across the spectrum of corporate and community life in the emirate. It also has a vision to integrate individually automated government departments under the single umbrella of the eGovernment initiative, thus empowering employees across lines of businesses and levels of government, besides facilitating the lives of citizens and customers of the government. Dubai has taken a lead in the region in deploying eGovernment applications and is among the first few governments in the world to provide such integrated services to its citizens. The eGovernment portal (www.dubai.ae) is a single contact point masking the complexity of the bureaucratic procedures, and guiding access to all services in the easiest possible way. In addition, the eGovernment initiative seeks to improve and enhance procedures by maximizing the benefit from technology, so that users from all walks of life will be able to utilize the portal for their specific needs with considerable ease.
