Swedish National Agency for School Improvement - 2003

The Localisation Research Centre's 8th Annual Localisation Conference and Industry Showcase in Dublin was the venue for the presentation of the inaugural Best Global Website Award, sponsored by Euro RSCG Interaction.

The review panel consisted of eminent experts in the area of marketing, web design, internationalisation and localisation from different European companies.

The panel unanimously decided to present the inaugural LRC ELECT Best Global Website Award 2003 to www.modersmal.net, developed by the Swedish National Agency for School Improvement.

The site provides a resource for those working in child care and school education. It concentrates on "mother tongue" education, and contains a variety of different "mother tongue rooms" with each room containing information and tools for communicating in different languages.

Jesús Maroto, Account Manager & Localisation Director of Euro RSCG Interaction said "The winning site is a prime example of how to carry out cross-cultural online communication. The content has been carefully targeted to meet the needs of the target users and is fully customised for them. The images and the content are relevant to each locale and the design has been carefully crafted to satisfy the local appeal of each group."

The panel unanimously decided to give special mention to two sites for their outstanding contribution to multilingual and multicultural web design:

http://www.2003specialolympics.com - The web site for the 2003 Special Olympics held in Ireland. The site was submitted by Bowne Global Solutions and was especially commended for its outstanding content interface design and its underlying technology using XLIFF and web services.

www.panasonic-racing.com - The 2003 Formula One Racing site submitted by Panasonic Marketing Europe was especially commended for its outstanding design and visual impact demonstrating the possibilities of high-tech remote user interaction.

Reinhard Schäler, the Director of the Localisation Research Centre, expressed his happiness with the award commenting, "We are delighted with the high level of interest that this award has generated and its very first year. The calibre of entries that we received for this award shows that businesspeople, especially on the web, are recognising that localisation is core for the equal and inclusive access to the digital world. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the companies that entered the award in this, it's first year and also salute the award's sponsor, Euro RSCG Interaction, for having the foresight to sponsor this award".