THE Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) has been selected as one of 90 finalists of the annual World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) Prizes contest.

Francklin Alao, the General Manager, Corporate Communications of the agency made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.

According to Alao, WSIS is a global initiative recognising innovative projects that use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to better the world.

He said the finalists known as WSIS champions represent the top 90 projects selected from 492 nominated projects around the world.

“The project that won NIPOST the finalist place is the NIPOST Address Verification System (NIPOST AVS), which seeks to create a centralised and up-to-date database of physical addresses and details of their occupants.

“It is aimed at bridging the gap in our national financial inclusion strategy to empower the CBN’s Know Your Customer (KYC) and improve our national security infrastructure while creating hundreds of jobs in a commercial manner.

“This is one of the new projects created by the organisation to impact on more Nigerians, especially at the rural level and we hope to come out as a winner of one of the 18 prizes at the end of the summit,’’ he said.

Alao said the WSIS Prizes 2018 edition is the 15^th edition and will be held in Geneva, Switzerland on the March 20.

The general manager said the prestigious award started since 2012.

“It has been recognising remarkable efforts made by entities and organisations from around the world that focus on accelerating socio-economic progress of the whole world as a community,’’ he said.

NAN reports that WSIS champions represent all regions of the world and all stakeholders that deploy ICT to implement WSIS Action Lines and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is a two-tier United Nations sponsored summit on information, communication and information society.

It aims to bridge the global digital divide separating rich countries from poor countries by spreading access to the internet in the developing world. (NAN)

– Mar. 14, 2018 @ 12:49 GMT |