Whanganui District Council wins prestigious IT award

Published on 15 July 2016

Whanganui District Council’s Information Services group has taken out the Excellence in Public Sector IT award at the 2016 New Zealand Excellence in IT Awards this week.

The Excellence in Public Sector IT award is one of eight awards at the 2016 New Zealand Excellence in IT, an annual event to recognise achievement within the New Zealand IT industry, including local government.

The award was given on the strength of Whanganui’s Top 7 Intelligent Community status, its collaborative work with central government on the development of online election processes, as well as its work with online public services and shared data services for councils in the Manawatū/Whanganui region.

Mayor Annette Main who Chairs the Whanganui Digital Leaders Forum and accepted the Top 7 award last month in Columbus, commended the Council’s IT team on winning yet another award.

“It’s really positive to have our council’s staff regarded so highly and counted amongst our country’s top technology professionals. We have a great team whose innovative work is helping us to develop as a digitally savvy and globally connected community.”

Chief Information Officer Jason Simons was thrilled with the result and was impressed with the judging process.

“After the finalists were announced I attended an interview session with a panel of judges. This was a very thorough and well-conducted interview. The judges had done their homework.”

The awards were announced on Tuesday night at an awards dinner in Wellington, attended by an audience of over 1200 people. The MC for the ceremony was comedian Raybon Kan and presented by Hon. Amy Adams, Minister of Communications.