The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has announced the finalists of the seventh annual WSIS Prizes contest – a global initiative recognizing innovative projects using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to better the world. The finalists, known as WSIS Champions, represent the top 90 projects selected from a record-breaking 492 nominated projects.

Since 2012, the prestigious WSIS Prizes contest has been recognizing remarkable efforts made by entities and organizations from around the globe that focus on accelerating socio-economic progress of the whole world as a community.

The WSIS Champions represent all regions of the world, and all stakeholders, and are recognized as stellar models of using ICTs towards implementation of the WSIS Action Lines and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The WSIS Prizes 2018 Award Ceremony will be held on 20 March 2018 at the WSIS Forum 2018 in Geneva. This year marks the 15^th anniversary of the WSIS Forum in Geneva. Eighteen winners will be announced from the 90 finalists, and together all WSIS Prizes Winners and WSIS Prizes Champions will be honoured at the event. Each winner is recognized as the best in each of the 18 prize categories, which are aligned with the 18 WSIS Action Lines outlined in the Geneva Plan of Action.

The WSIS Prizes submission phase ran from 11 September 2017 to 10 January 2018. It received a record number of 685 project submissions, out of which 492 exceptional projects were nominated. Close to one million online votes were cast, from 29 January to 18 February 2018, for the nominated projects. Following a comprehensive review by the Expert Group, 90 extraordinary initiatives were selected as the finalists – the WSIS Prizes 2018 Champions.    

This year, the multi-stakeholder representation was very strong, with more than 240 projects submitted by government agencies, 97 projects submitted by private sector companies, and 82 projects submitted by national civil society organizations. International organizations and others accounted for more than 100 submitted projects.

Regionally, this year's submissions represented Africa (12.7%), the Americas (18.5%), the Arab region (16.1%), the Asia Pacific region (29.2%), the CIS region (10.4%), Europe (9.8%), and 14 international projects (12.1%).

The project descriptions of this year's WSIS Prizes Champions will be published in the publication WSIS Stocktaking: Success Stories 2018, to be released during WSIS Forum 2018 along with WSIS Stocktaking 2018 Regional Reports.

Learn more about WSIS Prizes and see a full list of this year's WSIS Prizes Champions by clicking here.