Winners of 2008 UAE Web Awards
Organizers of the UAE Web Awards honored the winners of the 2008 competition during a red carpet ceremony held on Nov. 29 at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Dubai. Companies maintaining the best websites in the region were recognized in 35 categories including finance, government, health services, media and international organizations.
The Award of Excellence went to Paravision, with the http://www.alqudrare.ae site designed by the company also winning the International Standards Web Technology Award. The prestigious Best Arab Website in UAE went to http://www.iacad.gov.ae while Zed Communications won the special Microsoft Award for the best website built on Microsoft Technology for http://www.cbq.com.qa. Other awardees were Star Portal as the Web Company of the Year; 2 PURE for http://yacht-liner.com which was presented the Diamond Award for the Best Website in UAE; KSA-based, UAE-made website www.salmanaward.com won as Best Strategic Governmental Website; and http://www.dcdconference.com dominated the prestigious Governmental Organizations category.
The Pan Arab Web Awards is regarded as one of the leading award programs in the field, providing a unique platform for creative web designers to showcase their work and attain well-deserved market recognition. The awards advocate that the innovative spirit of local designers must also meet professional and international standards. A panel of prominent experts in the field of web design determines the winners.
Cerner opens Riyadh office
Cerner, an international supplier of health care information technology (HIT) solutions, has opened an office at Arch Tower in Riyadh. Cerner has provided HIT solutions to clients in Saudi Arabia for 16 years.
With operations in 21 countries, Cerner currently has six clients at ten different facilities in Saudi Arabia, including King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center. The hospital chose Cerner as its HIT partner in May 2000 to implement multiple Cerner Millennium solutions, automating physician and nursing documentation as well as the emergency room, radiology, pharmacy, surgery and administrative operations.
The Cerner Millennium solutions implemented at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center provide a clear benefit to both patients and healthcare providers in the cycle of care delivery through electronic patient registration, order entry, scheduling, results reporting and viewing. Throughout the hospital, consultants, doctors and nurses are noting how much easier and quicker it is to order and view results, saving patients and clinicians valuable time. For example, official radiology reports are now available electronically within an hour, whereas turnaround time used to be more than a day.
KSU students to use Autodesk
King Saud University (KSU) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Autodesk. The agreement, which aims to promote engineering and design careers to address strong market demand in the Kingdom, will involve efforts to drive student community registrations, downloads and adoption of Autodesk software and curriculum in the classrooms. Autodesk is a world leader in 2D and 3D design software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets.
Under the terms of the MOU, KSU will actively use the latest versions of Autodesk Revit Architecture, Revit Structure, Revit MEP, Civil 3D, NavisWorks, Ecotect, Inventor and AliasStudio, in engineering and design programs as well as in their training center. In addition, a core group of instructors trained by Autodesk will train other instructors in the university. An effort will be made as well to teach instructors from other schools and training centers in the Kingdom.
“King Saud University is a leader in innovative teaching methods as well as in providing training for industry-leading software, which give students valuable experience and more importantly, a competitive edge as future engineering and design professionals,” said Dr. Zeyad O. Al- Hekail, Vice President for Educational and Academic Affairs, KSU. “As a leading educational institution in the Kingdom, we are looking forward to working with Autodesk by implementing new, innovative approaches to teaching design and engineering, which will involve exposing our students to their leading-edge solutions. We believe many more universities will follow suit, and will model their programs and curricula after seeing the sure success of this pioneering initiative.”
As a part of this engagement with KSU, Autodesk will assist the university in developing design courseware and potentially new elective inter-disciplinary courses in the areas of product design. Students and instructors at KSU are also entitled to free-of-charge student licenses for their self-study, which can be installed on their private computers for non-commercial use. Furthermore, students and faculty will also gain access to the global Autodesk Student Engineering and Design Community portal where they can download free software and be given assistance in establishing contacts with other Autodesk strategic education partnership universities across the EMEA region and worldwide.
