C-DOT wins UN’s WSIS 2024 “Champion” Award
Award and Honour
5 min read
The government of India’s premier Telecom Research and Development Centre, the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), has won the United Nations World Summit of Information Society (WISS) 2024 award. The award to C-DOT was announced at the WSIS+20 Forum High-Level Event 2024, which was held in Geneva, Switzerland, from 27 to 31 May 2024.
C-DOT was set up on 24 August 1984 by the government of India to bring telecom revolution in India by developing telecom technologies and products suitable to Indian conditions.
United Nations WISS +20 Award
The C-DOT project “Mobile-Enabled Disaster Resilience through Cell Broadcast Emergency Alerting” received the ‘Champion’ award under the AI, C-7, E-environment, in the category of "Benefits in all aspects of life—E-environment.”
The UN award recognises the C-DOTs project for its outstanding contribution towards strengthening the implementation of the WSIS outcomes and underscores C-DOT’s commitment to leveraging technology for societal impact.
C -DOTs Award-winning Technology
C-DOT has developed an end-to-end mobile-enabled Cell Broadcast Emergency Alerting Platform to deliver real-time messages in an emergency. A text message is delivered by the mobile operator to users in specific locations through mobile cell towers.
It is basically sent in cases of natural disasters, such as cyclones or earthquakes, or for any other emergency situation.
The CDOT-developed solution has the capability to send messages in many Indian regional languages.
WSIS+20 Forum High-Level Event
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)+20 Forum High-Level Event 2024 marked the twenty years of the Geneva Action Plan 2003 of the World Summit on the Information Society.
The Geneva Action Plan 2003 of the WISS set the framework for global digital cooperation with a vision of building inclusive, development-oriented information and knowledge societies.
The main aim of the Geneva Summit was to lay down a road map to building an information society that is accessible to everyone.
Since then, the WISS+20 Forum High-Level Event has been held in Geneva every year to review the progress made in achieving the goal set by the Geneva 2003 action plan.
The WISS+20 Forum High-Level Event is organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation ( UNESCO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ( UNCTAD) and the United Nations Development Programme( UNDP).
About the World Summit on Information Society
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) first proposed the World Summit on Information Society in 1998 to discuss issues related to the digital divide worldwide. There was concern worldwide as the internet was controlled by the United States of America. Many countries thought they would not be able to get the full benefit of information and communication technology due to the undue dominance of the American government and its companies. Later, the agenda was expanded to include internet-related public policy issues.
The United Nations accepted the proposal in 2001, and the first World Summit on Information Society was held in Geneva, Switzerland in 2003.
