CICRA Solutions nominated for top global digital award

The Colombo Tea e-Auction platform developed by CICRA Solutions (Pvt.) Ltd has been selected as Sri Lanka’s Best National Digital Solution for World Summit Awards (WSA) 2020, under the Business and Commerce (Innovative Services) category.

Announcing the nominees for the 2020 awards from Salzburg, Austria, the WSA in a media release said that CICRA Solutions’ Colombo Tea e-Auction has been selected as Sri Lanka’s Best National Digital Solution for the WSA, under the Business and Commerce (Innovative Services) category.

“The WSA nominees are selected carefully and highly competitive by the WSA National Experts, from more than 184 UN member states. The WSA National Experts nominate up to eight projects for each country – one for every WSA category,” the release said.

The WSA is the only ICT event worldwide that reaches the digital-driven social-impact community, in over 180 countries. The WSA is a global initiative within the framework of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). It highlights digital content improving society and focuses on local content with global relevance.

“The Colombo Tea e-Auction was nominated as Best National Digital Solution for Sri Lanka for the international award WSA, selecting digital innovation with impact on society,” the release said. 

“A nomination to the WSA hence is already an award in itself – the qualification to compete and compare on an international level and being the best practice in the Business and Commerce (Innovative Services) category nationally.”

“With this nomination in the Business and Commerce (Innovative Services) category, the Colombo Tea e-Auction qualifies for evaluation by WSA Online Jury 2020, among over 340 international nominations – a global diameter of digital innovation, from Canada to Indonesia, from Finland to Mozambique,” it said.

“The WSA 2020 nominees will be evaluated based on seven fundamentals criteria: content, functionality, design, technology, innovation, impact and value.”

“Smart content combined with optimised utilisation of state-of-the-art technology offers immense opportunities to close global and local divides and the achievement of the UN SDGs.”

“The WSA nominees 2020 show the richness, diversity, future and innovation of digital solutions on a global scale and prove how digital technology can improve society on each corner of the world,” it said. 

Meanwhile, WSA Chairman Peter A. Bruck said that the WSA combines two major perspectives in its initiative – first the commitment on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how to use ICTs to development. And second the development of a global knowledge society.

“The UN SDGs must be our measurement – in terms of what to look at and where to look. Today we are living in a completely different environment – through the mobile revolution, through the emergence of the algorithmic age – data has become a capital as much as labour, land money and machinery,” Bruck said.

“Hence, it is more important than ever to evaluate what is excellent content that really offers solutions and impact. Qualitative, local content has become the key and permanent issue. The WSA presents innovation that uses ICT for social connectivity. To connect for impact,” he said.

Launched in April 2020, under the COVID-19 lockdown, CICRA Solution’s Colombo Tea e-Auction platform facilitated uninterrupted foreign exchange inflow to Sri Lanka from tea exports. This led to saving wages of 10 percent of the country’s population dependent on the tea industry.  

The solution paved the way for 137-year-old Colombo Tea Auction – the largest, complexed and oldest tea auction in the world – to go online.