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Assessment & Judging


Important Dates

Application Deadline:	22 September 2001
Assessment Visits:	November 2001
Final Judging Meeting:	December 2001
Award Presentation:	January 2002

Eligibility

To ensure that the awards will principally benefit the local IT industry, all applications must be endorsed by a locally registered company. A significant part of development effort must come from local resources. Development tools can be local software or overseas software, but more weight will be attached to entries that demonstrate the use of local products.

Award Streams

IT Application Awards
This award will honour and promote examples of successful and effective in-house applications of IT to heighten the competitive advantages of company products or services. The selection criteria will focus on in-house services that have brought demonstrable improvements in functionality, productivity, competitiveness, cost performance and that have a favourable societal impact. Target users must be based mainly in Hong Kong although the scope of the project may be world-wide or regional.

Applicants can be large corporations or SMEs in Hong Kong, with less than 100 employees or servicing companies with less than 50 employees are eligible to apply for this special category of awards. Same set of selection criteria is applied to them.

IT Product Awards
This award will be granted in recognition of outstanding achievements in technological innovations. The selection criteria will be based on software product functionality and technical innovation, market performance and societal benefits, including any extension of the acceptance and understanding of information technology by society.

Gold, silver and bronze awards will be presented in each stream. Nevertheless, the awards will be granted solely at the discretion of the Panel of Judges. They may be withheld for any category in one or all of the award streams.

Assessment Procedures

1. Each entrant should complete the application form and return it on or before 22 September 2001 to the Organizer. 
   
   

2. Each entrant is required to submit detailed information on the application/product. An assessment team will conduct preliminary screening and entries will be selected for further assessment. 
   
   

3. In the second stage, short listed applicants will be invited to make a 15-minute presentation on their submission to the Assessment Team and to supply additional information in a question and answer session. The Assessment Team will further shortlist the applicants for on-site assessments. 
   
   

4. In the third stage, visits will be made to inspect the application in a typical working environment. The applicant will be responsible for demonstrating the application in operation. The assessors will also interview the users on site. 
   
   

5. The Assessment Team will shortlist finalists for each stream for final judging by the Panel of Judges who will select the best entrants to be awarded the Gold, Silver, Bronze Awards and the Certificates of Merit for each stream of Awards.

Judging Criteria

IT Application Award
This category will be given to professionals or organizations who have made a successful implementation of software into its business operations.

    1. Functionality

• Understanding and addressing to user requirements of the operation 
• Easy to learn and use, well designed screen layout 
• Well accepted by the user, meet or exceed service level required by user 
• Good quality of work, reliable, efficient and adequate user support 
• Versatile to cater for operational efficiency and provide path for work re-engineering

    2. Productivity

• Use the software to formulate productivity strategy
• Productivity gain after implementation
• Competitive edge over others in terms of efficiency and effectiveness
• Implementation: cost vs effort

    3. Competitiveness

• Improvement in business performance
•  Enhancing the competitive edge over others 
• Critical functional and by feature comparison with similar applications

    4. Cost Performance

• Cost savings
• Contribution to revenue
• Return on investment

    5. Social Impact

• Discovering an under-served sector or opening up a new service area
• Direct benefit to the target user sector
• Enhancing the public awareness on the use of IT
• Stimulating the interest of innovation of similar applications
• Transforming the industry 

    6. Innovative use of IT

• Credit should be given to company with sound, executable and proven business model, in which IT is a key enabler (e.g. some eCommerce companies).

IT Product Award
This category is aimed at independent software developers who have produced products for the general market.

    1. Functionality

• Understanding and addressing to user requirements of the target industry
• Easy to set up, learn and use
• Quality of work, reliability, screen layout and presentation
• Simple and versatile to cater for operational efficiency and provide path for work re-engineering

    2. Innovation

• First of its kind in Hong Kong, the region, or the world and when
• Effective deployment and integration of available resources or technologies
• Appropriate cost/benefit ratio in terms of the R&D expenditure
• The possibility of breakthrough in an upgraded version or any plans to develop an upgrade
• Clear differentiation vs. competitive products, if any

    3. Market Performance

• Reasonable sales figures in the last 12 months, market share and penetration
• Projected sales figures in coming 12 months and marketing strategy
• Sound marketing plan with clear target segment, competitive analysis and established sales channel

    4. Cost Performance

• Critical functional and by feature comparison with comparable products
• Generating higher added-value

    5. Social Impact

• Direct and indirect benefits to the target user sector
• Enhancing the public awareness on the use of IT
• Transforming the industry