As part of its efforts to encourage Omani youth to develop  the Omani eContent, the Information Technology Authority (ITA), represented  by the Digital Society Development Division, celebrated the conclusion of WikiOman Competition by honoring the winners, supporters and jury members last Thursday, at the Knowledge Oasis Muscat, with the presence of Dr. Salim Bin Sultan Alruzaiqi, CEO of ITA.
The 11 winning articles discuss various aspects about Oman including Omani traditional  food like Omani halwa, as well as highlighting notable Omani figures  like the Omani artist, Anwar Sonia and other Omani scientists and notables in literature and history. In addition, one of the articles   highlights one of the significant ancient villages in Oman called Muqaniat in Aldhahira governorate.  Another winning article focuses on one of the Islamic buildings in Oman which is the Sultan Qaboos Mosque  in Nizwa in Aldhakhilia governorate. All the participating  and winning articles are available in the free encyclopedia (Wikipedia).
Mr. Hassan Fida Allawati, director of industry development at ITA, said “through WikiOman Competition, we aim to encourage and enable our Omani talented youth to contribute in promoting Oman in the digital landscape using their creativity and potentials. We hope that such exertion and contribution  remain constant beyond this competition.”
To insure the integrity of the evaluation process, all participating articles were  evaluated by a neutral committee consisting of a number of Omani writers, academics  and literary figures who have wide experience in writing in general and in encyclopedic style specifically.
It is worth mentioning that WikiOman competition  was launched last October to enrich the Omani eContent in the Free Encyclopedia “Wikipedia). it targeted Omani youth, social media users, bloggers, academics, writers and journalists with the aim of  promoting the digital voluntarism among Omani youth to encourage them to be more content producers rather than consumers only as well as enriching the Omani/Arabic eContent.