An Egyptian Community Development portal boasting over 39 million visits has won first prize in the Arab e-Content Awards 2011.
The portal, www.kenanaonline.com, was named the winner in the Social Network Category. The Award, sponsored by the e-Government Authority in Bahrain, was officially announced at the Bahrain IT Expo 2011 last week.
Kenanaonline.com, managed by the UNDP Project ‘ICT to Foster Egypt's Sustainable Human Development (Phase II)’, has also won awards in the Stockholm Challenge, E-India, the Pan-Arab Web Awards, The Arab e-Content Award, and the World summit Award.
Kenanaonline.com provides information related to business; small industry; health; agriculture and farming; and educational and vocational training. The portal also serves as an information hub for youth, with information on a wide variety of topics, ranging from entertainment to computer and internet knowledge.
The portal also offers a number of activities including conducting field activities for youth engagement, such as workshops; establishing a network of youth mentors; building partnerships with organizations working on similar initiatives; developing multimedia content to simplify important messages; providing entertainment content to attract youth; and ensuring the availability of capacity building content.
Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) says during 2010, the Kenanaonline portal has grown significantly in both scope and popularity. To date kenanaonline.com has received over 39,000,000 visits, with the number of unique visitors surpassing the 320,000 mark.
The number of articles stored on the portal has risen from 15,000 articles in early 2007 to over 50,000 today. MCIT says this increase illustrates Kenanaonline’s ability to serve its user base well by adding content that responds to the needs of the participating communities. 5,000 of those users have officially registered online to the portal. Kenanaonline’s services aren’t limited to Egyptian communities; while about 50% of the portal’s users are from Egypt, 10% from Saudi Arabia, 30% from other Arabic-speaking countries, and 10% are from non-Arabic speaking countries.
IT clubs and NGOs play a crucial role in Kenanaonline’s activities by responding to user’s interests and assisting in the accumulation of relevant content in the portal.
Thus far, the agricultural section has been the most popular among visitors and currently has 10 dedicated professionals who add content based on the needs of its users. A civil society component of the Kenanaonline is also being developed to help foster a dialogue among participants and strengthen the community dynamic that is of vital importance to the project as a whole.
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