2017 DStv Eutelsat Star Awards open with new Facebook page

ITREALMS:

The 2017 DStv Eutelsat Star Awards competition has opened with a bang afterscooping a Better Satellite Award at the third annual Better Satellite World Awards gala dinner in London, reports ITRealms.
 

The awards, ITRealms gathered, honour established companies along with disruptive innovators who make the world a more prosperous, healthier, better-educated, sustainable and inclusive home for humankind.

Drawing on six years of success across the continent, the DStv Eutelsat Star Awards is returning for a 7^th edition, just as students from secondary (high) or combined schools can enter from today bywriting a creative essay or designing a poster based on the following topic:“It’s sixty years since the first satellite, Sputnik, was launched,broadcasting a unique and easily captured ‘beep, beep, beep’ signal. Looking back at this historic moment, write an essay or design a poster depicting how satellites have launched humankind into the 21^stCentury and acted as a unifier.”

ITRealms reports that the prizes of this innovative competition are as big as the dreams of a young, energised African generation ready to shape the evolution of our continent. Selected from thousands of entries by a high-standard jury, the essay winner will be eligible for a once-in-a-lifetime trip for two to Paris, Francein the company of Eutelsat, and onwards to French Guiana to see a rocket launch into space. The poster winner will win a trip for two to South Africa which includes a visit to the South African National Space Agency as well as exploration of several heritage sites as guests of MultiChoice Africa. The schools attended by the two winners will also receive a DStv installation, including a dish, TV, decoder and free access to the DStv Education Package.

The DStv Eutelsat Star Awards are open to all learners from secondary (high) or combined schools on the continent where MultiChoice Africa maintains operations. Entry forms can be obtained from any MultiChoice Resource Centre, the nearest MultiChoice office.

Maintaining that entries are accepted in English, French and Portuguese and will be judged on the basis of high-standard criteria of accuracy, creativity, originality and innovation.For the first time this year students are also invited to engage with the Awards community through a dedicated Facebook page.

The competition closes on 12 February 2018. Only entries submitted on the official entry form will be eligible. The overall winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in March 2018.  

All details on the judging criteria, national prizes and finalists’ selection are available on the DStv Eutelsat Star Awards website.

MultiChoice Africa and Eutelsat are convinced of the power of science and technology education to encourage young mindstopositively change their world. Now in its 7^th year, their joint initiative, the DStv Eutelsat Star Awards,inspire innovative thinking among a young African generation.This pan-African collaboration has created a meaningful engagement with students, the academic community and the scientific world. Since the start of the DStv Eutelsat Star Awards in 2011, over 6,000 students have taken part in this unique competition.

  
Nonye Dom/GEE

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

Afrique Telecom partner Eutelsat, Wikimédia offer free access French Wikipedia

ITRealms:

The trio of Afrique Telecom is partnering with Eutelsat and Wikimedia France to offer free access to French language Wikipedia in Sub-Saharan Africa via Wireless Fidelity (WiFi), reports ITRealms.

This ITRealms also gathered the trio would progressively deploy Internet solutions over Sub-Saharan Africa in combination with Eutelsat’s satellite capacity. 

“Its “TamTam” service extends access to the Internet in rural areas using Wi-Fi hotspots for collective access,” a press statement made available to ITRealms revealed, stressing that it would be used to offer free access to French-language Wikipedia content for many thousands of users. 

This initiative, starting in French-speaking Africa, supports Wikimédia France’s strategy to promote free access to educational content, in particular through Wikipedia.

In order to offer free, unlimited access, Afrique Telecom has developed a server located at “TamTam” hotspots that would locally host French-language Wikipedia content. The content would be updated regularly via a satellite link provided by Eutelsat.

Equally, ITRealms reports that Afrique Telecom’s ambition is to roll-out “TamTam” between 4000 and 8000 hotspots in the next two years, while Eutelsat has agreed to finance servers hosted by the first 1,000 hotspots as a springboard that will further measure the impact of the service.

The Wikimedia movement has made a priority of improving accessibility and content creation on Wikipedia for so-called “Southern” countries. There is still a large gap between Northern and Southern countries in terms of the number of readers and contributors to Wikimedia platforms as well as content on Southern countries. French-speaking Africa is a priority action area for the Wikimédia France Foundation, as a complement to its Afripédia project.

Uj Dominic/GEE with additional report from APO

 

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!