News and Media
Biznet's WIMPS site wins BT Award!
Wednesday 28 February 2007 Business and GovernmentOnce again Biznet's WIMPS web project has been recognised as one of the new and exciting ways for young people to have their voices heard on issues that affect them.
The BT "Speaking & Listening Awards" has listed WIMPS among the Highly Commended category, and the WIMPS team are delighted to accept this award on behalf of the entire team of young people who have worked so enthusiastically to create this website. This award follows the previous recognition given to WIMPS from the Council of Europe in 2005 (Young Active Citizens).
WIMPS is a site that uses the latest technology to act as a collaboration tool allowing young people to contact their local representatives as well as provide and share information with each other. The WIMPS team had envisaged a political "You Tube" for Northern Ireland and they have succeeded! Where else would you see Northern Ireland politicians doing impressions of their political opponents!
A critical success factor for the WIMPS team has been to ensure that as much of the site content as possible can come from contributors such as youth groups themselves. Members are encouraged to submit multimedia as well as traditional text based content for consideration by the WIMPS' content administrators.
Provision of a strict approval process ensures young people can contribute in a safe web environment.The WIMPS website has site has a database of all public representatives in Northern Ireland searchable by using a postcode to identify all your representatives from local Council to European Parliament level. Users can then click on a button to send emails to these representatives about the issues they are interested in.
Congratulations to the team involved!!