By winning a World Summit Award (WSA) in e-Culture and Tourism, Uganda’s Gorilla Highlands has been recognized as one of the most innovative, technically advanced and perfectly designed e-content products worldwide.
Gorilla Highlands received this honor after competing against outstanding ICT ventures and applications from 168 countries. The products were judged from Aug. 29 to Aug. 31 in Tallinn, Estonia and Gorilla Highlands was selected as one of the 40 best ICT ventures by the WSA Grand Jury. The jury was comprised of 17 high profile IT professionals and e-content experts, hailing from every continent and with such diverse backgrounds as industry leaders, researchers, social entrepreneurs and journalists.
Studio Edirisa, the multimedia team behind Gorilla Highlands (gorillahighlands.com), believes that the world should appreciate Africa more and that Ugandans should be prouder and more knowledgeable of their heritage. They decided to create an interactive ebook that would do justice to the natural beauty and cultural richness of their home region. Thus began an incredible story of a village-based team joining forces with expert volun-teers all over the globe to make a world-class product. Gorilla Highlands presents the landscape, people and wildlife of Kabale, Kanungu and Kisoro districts through stunning photography, well-researched text, plentiful videos, interactive illustrations and maps. The ebook also includes an extensive audio phrasebook in Rukiga and Rufumbira. Currently available for the iPad, the ebook will soon be readable on Macs, with other plat-forms and a comprehensive website following in 2014.
“Winning the Award is recognition of the efforts of our small but dedicated team. Several years of volunteer work have gone into making Gorilla Highlands a fitting tool for promoting our region, and we hope international visitors and Ugandans who enjoy the ebook will be convinced to experience the real thing,” said Miha Logar of Studio Edirisa.
The Gorilla Highlands ebook went through several stages before winning the Award. Each of the 461 ventures that made it to the Grand Jury had already won a national World Summit Award in its home country in one of the eight categories of the WSA. Gorilla Highlands finally competed against all e-Culture and Tourism category submissions in a three-day process and emerged one of the five winners.
The creative minds of Studio Edirisa can now present their venture at the 2013 Gala organized by the WSA team and its Sri Lanka partner organization ICTA in Colombo from Oct. 23 to Oct 26., the global hub for the world’s best e-content.
