Nweke Wins Deutsche Welle, FOSS Award

Remmy Nweke of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) desk at Champion Newspapers has bagged the first-ever African Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Reporter award.
The award which was the first of its kind by the Free and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA) and Deutsche Welle (DW) under Fossway project, was presented to him in Accra by Mr. Thomas Bastian, director, Deutsche Welle Online, in company of Ms Nnenna Nwakanma, FOSSFA chairperson, as part of the weeklong fourth Idlelo conference organized at the State House, Banquet Hall, Accra.
Speaking at the ceremony, Ms Nwakanma, noted that the award was open to Africans living on the continent, authors of articles or broadcasts that were published or aired in the last two years and were also made available both in the traditional media and new media.
Winning entries, she pointed out was an article described as valuable to an African audience, which showed clarity in communication and significantly explaining, interpreting and reporting the impact of FOSS on the development of Africa and recognizing newsworthiness thereof.
Therefore, she said that Mr. Nweke’s piece on ‘Open Source as business solution’ met the aforementioned criterion based on the voices reflected and juries’ declaration, therefore, it was pronounced the best.
She also promised that FOSSFA would continue to support African media practitioners, even as she solicited for more reportage on the activities of group on the continent.
Also speaking, Mr. Bastian of DW said that they are partnering on the media award project because Africa is very important continent to them, disclosing that the winning article was well articulated and would be serialized in one of their projects in Latin America and particularly Brazil to showcase the kind of efforts Africans are making in FOSS adaptation.
Mr. Dele Ajisomo, chief executive officer, Mandriva West Africa, in his congratulatory message, said that Nigeria is proud of Mr. Nweke’s achievements on the continent and asked him to remain steadfast.
Mr. Nweke is not new to professional prizes as he had in the past won the Siemens African Profile Award for 2004 and 2005; thus becoming the first Nigerian to win such awards on excellence in science and technology reporting twice in addition to a merit awarded him in 2008.
In addition, he is a pioneer Nigerian editorial board member of the Highway Africa News Agency (HANA) based at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, and won the second prize in Local Content Application category at the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) awards in 2005 organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
In 2006, Mr. Nweke was honour with the Hewlett Packard (HP) Nigeria’s top prize for Nigerian ICT journalists in technology reporting, whereas he was the first runner up in the Nigerian IT & Telecom Awards print category