(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) The Information Technology Authority (ITA) won the award for the category Best Government Entity Supporting Entrepreneurship that was announced during the Entrepreneurship Award 2014 ceremony.
It was held under the patronage of H H Sayyid Badr bin Saud al Busaidi Minister Responsible for Defense Affairs at the Cultural Center at SQU on January 27.
Omar al Shanfari deputy CEO for operations received the award which comes as acknowledgment for the ITA's efforts in supporting SMEs and entrepreneurship through different initiatives and projects.
The ITA launched Sas Programme for Entrepreneurship in March 2013 to attract start-ups and ambitious youth in IT in various areas by providing an appropriate environment for such projects to help them innovate create and generate ideas to boost the SMEs presence in the Omani economy. To date the centre incubates 15 companies specialised in ICT field and the ITA wishes to incubate 60 companies 30 virtual and 30 physical during the next coming years.
Sas Centre for Virtual Reality (Sas VR) was launched in April 2014 to be a regional centre that provides the infrastructure needed for developing virtual reality applications and multimedia content. The center has trained 240 Omanis up to date and plans to provide training opportunities for as much as 120 trainees a year.
The Sustainability project of the Community Knowledge Centers - CKCs and Women CKCs aim at transforming them into Business Units that run the centres as SMEs to ensure the continuity of the digital literacy and provide training services to the citizens especially in the disadvantaged areas of the country. The project focuses on creating the right atmosphere for entrepreneurs and the formation of a generation of centres that help the community while making revenue and creating jobs.
The centres offer new and advanced IT services for reasonable fees and provide opportunities to learn and develop the community IT skills. Therefore the centres became socially and financially sustainable. Seven CKCs have been transferred into Business Units (BU) and these are: Sur Khabourah Sohar Ibri Amerat Barka and Nizwa.
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