Nominees for 2015 Globe Media Excellence Awards in Visayas Announced

Wazzup Pilipinas!

A total of 53 entries were shortlisted for various categories of the Globe Media Excellence Awards (GMEA), the most anticipated premier award-giving body that gives recognition to excellence in journalism in central Philippines

The premier award-giving body which recognizes excellence in journalism from the best breed of scribes in Visayas and Mindanao, the awards pay tribute and gives recognition to print, broadcast, and digital media practitioners who have excelled in their respective fields.

Awards night for the GMEA Visayas leg will be held on September 24, 2015 at the Grand Convention Center of Cebu, to coincide with celebrations for the Cebu Press Freedom Week.

Entries were from various media organizations in Cebu, Bacolod and Iloilo. The finalists will vie for nine award categories namely: Reporter of the Year for Print, Explanatory/Investigative Story of the Year for Print/Online, Columnist of the Year, Photojournalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year for Television, Explanatory/Investigative Story of the Year for Television, Reporter of the Year for Radio, Blogger of the Year, and Social Media Advocate of the Year. There were a total of 688 entries this year compared with 522 last year.

DSDS 2015: Accelerating Inclusive Development through ICT Innovation

Wazzup Pilipinas!

In this digital age, most people rely on digital technology to perform daily activities. The emergence of information and communications technology (ICT) paved the way for better delivery of services from different organizations including the government, private sector and nonprofits to the consumption of the general public. However, digital divide still exists where some people, mostly located in the rural areas, don’t have access to digital resources.

Now on its second year, Digital Strategies for Development Summit (DSDS) 2015: A Knowledge Exchange Forum for Asia-Pacific Region and Beyond aims to address this problem by promoting digital inclusion. Organized by DOST-ICT Office, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and managed by Asia Society for Social Improvement and Sustainable Transformation, the event will be held on Sept 22-24 at Waterfront Cebu City Hotel, Philippines. DSDS 2015 is sponsored by Intel, Accenture and Microsoft.

With the theme, Accelerating Inclusive Development through ICT Innovation, DSDS 2015 brings together international development partners, policy makers, regulators, telecentre operators and managers, content and services developers and providers and key players from the public sector, NGOs, industry and academia. This dynamic circle of participants equips each attendee to bring home best practices and lessons learned from real experiences on ICT innovation.

Among the globally renowned speakers were International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Secretary General Houlin Zhou, Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Secretary Mario Montejo, Asian Development Bank (ADB) Director of Poverty Reduction, Gender, and Social Development Division Bart Edes, Intel Corporation Regional Director for Corporate Affairs, Asia Pacific & Japan, Anjan Ghosh and DOST-ICTO Assistant Secretary Bettina Quimson.

WazzupPilipinas.com Awarded as Best Filipino Community Blog Site

Wazzup Pilipinas!

To be awarded for all our efforts to make our site stand out. loud and proud, is the best recognition that is very much appreciated by the WazzupPilipinas.com team. We have been receiving awards from different award-giving bodies since we founded WazzupPilipinas.com in 2013 and received our very first recognition as one of the Top Emerging Influential Blog Site by DigitalFilipino.com. It was soon followed by an overwhelming series of awards every year coming from different award-giving bodies.

These awards have always been our inspiration to continue our advocacy in providing relevant news and information despite some shortcomings and obstacles, and exaggerated issues fabricated against us. We all know that we wouldn't be very controversial, and highly-talked about, if we were not really making a big difference. The continued patronage of many brands and organizations who partner with us for the promotion of their events, products and services only shows that we continue to be among the top blog sites in the Philippines.

WazzupPilipinas.com was conceptualized entirely to promote the Philippines as the most preferred destination. This is why we targeted to partner initially with the government agency we know as the Department of Tourism (DOT). We further reached out to other government agencies like the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), Department of Health (DOH), National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and many more, even reaching out to the Office of the President in Malacanan Palace.

The tagline of being the "Pambansang Blog ng Pilipinas" was mainly used because of that objective. We wanted to be the online media partner of not only our government but also of the many colleges and universities of the country, the many businesses and entrepreneurships belonging to the big corporations and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to the startups and advocacy programs of our countrymen and the many organizations that support everything about the Philippines.