This prestigious awards programme honors individuals, corporations, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, and media outlets that are pioneering the use of social media, ICT, mobile media, online communities, and collaborative technologies in the areas of business, media, journalism and professional communications, entertainment, education, social initiatives, government and politics.

It was announced on 9 November 2009 that the United Nations University recieved the award in the New Media Creation category (academic division) for the Our World 2.0 webzine.  According the Jen McClure, President of the Society “These winning case studies provide impressive examples of how organizations are successfully using new tools, technologies, solutions and practices in innovative ways to enhance their communications, relationships and improve their organizations.”

Other awards included Amazon.com and Lab126 for the Kindle as the SNCR Innovation of the Year, the Iranian political bloggers as the SNCR Humanitarians of the Year and David Plouffe, President Obama’s campaign strategist as the SNCR Visionary of the Year.

This is the second award for the Our World 2.0 webzine, which also won the best blog design in the 2008 Weblog Awards.

The best blog design finalists included some cool desgns like Pink Yellow Media, Veerle’s and Inhabitat.

In fact it was a very close competition between Our World 2.0 and Inhabitat up to the final day of voting. The best part is that both blogs have a strong environmental thematic.

Already we are seeing people in the blogsophere sharing their comments on the awards. I like this comment from Jungle Jil that captures what we were tryiing to do with the Our World 2.0 design.

“This year’s inaugural winner, OurWorld 2.0, is a fantastic example of gorgeous simplicity matched with fabulous style and superb functionality.”

So we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who voted for Our World 2.0. We also want to express our appreciation to the other finalists and the organizers on a wonderful competition. Now that we know each other, we hope that this can be the start of a long friendship.

The award for collaboration and co-creation was announced at a special gala dinner held in Cambridge Mass, on 14 November. This is the second year in a row that the UNU has recieved an award from the SNCR.

For more information, see the official annoucement.

Luis Patron, from the UNU Media Studio, was on hand to pick up the special Zapata statue. He was also present at the screening and participated in the follow-on question and answer session.

The documentary tells the story of the daily struggles of the local communities as they try to protect a biodiverse region outside Mexico City from illegal logging and development pressures. It was written, directed and co-produced by Patricia Sims, produced and co-directed by Luis Patron and edited by Michael Clark. The graphics and animations were produced by Sean Wood and David Jimenez.

The documentary will be screened on television in Mexico later this year.

Note: The photo of the statue is taken from the festival website.

Our project is a finalist in the Environment category and was reviewed by the jury composed of international experts in the area of ICT for Development. Only up to 20% of the entries that make it to the jury round are selected as finalists.

The winners of the Stockholm Challenge Award 2008 trophies are revealed during the ceremony in the Stockholm City Hall, on May 22, 2008.