Awards are given out by many organizations every year, but how do these impact the community and the people?
The Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (Famas) Awards is one of the four main film awards of the Philippines and is given by an independent award-giving body, composed of notable writers and movie columnists, for achievements in Philippine cinema for a calendar year.
The awards are celebrated annually since 1952, which makes it the oldest film industry award-giving body in the country.
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The Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) has the Sports Hall of Fame created through Republic Act 8757 on November 25, 1999. Candidates should be Filipino athletes, coaches and trainers who distinguished themselves in local and international sports competitions from 1924 to 1974. Inductees excelled in swimming, basketball, chess, weightlifting, shooting, tennis, or track and field.
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The Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature (Palanca Awards) are literary awards of the Philippines established in 1950 to inspire and recognize Filipino writers, including poets, playwrights, screenwriters and writers for children. It is organized by the Carlos Palanca Foundation and is one of the Philippines’s longest-running awards programs.
Today it funds the publication of Palanca Award-winning plays, and it added a category for poetry for children, in both Filipino and English. Contenders have submitted their pieces end of last month, and the announcement of winners will be on September 1.
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Apart from awards for movie, sports and literature, the business community also gives recognition to companies that excel in their area of specialization. The 10th anniversary of the International Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Awards Philippines brought together the most respected and dedicated movers in the information-technology and business-process management (IT-BPM) industry, organized by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, in cooperation with the IT and Business Process Association Philippines.
The Philippines is a respected player in the Asia-Pacific region. The ICT Awards recognizes achievements and excellence in organizations and individuals based in the country that made valuable contributions to the industry.
The winners in the different award categories for 2016 are Best Emerging IT-BPM Company for Health care is HCCA International; Best Emerging IT-BPM Company for Creatives is AffinityX; Best Emerging IT-BPM Company for Finance and Accounting is Northern Trust; Best Voice Excellence Company of the Year is Cognizant technology solutions Philippines; Best Global In-House Center of the Year is ANZ Global Services & Operations Manila; Best Software Company of the Year is Advanced World Solutions; Most Innovative Company of the Year is Lexmark Cebu; Best Filipino-owned Company of the Year is Pointwest Technologies, Best Company of the Year Outside of NCR is Lexmark Cebu; Best ICT CEO of the Year is Rajiv Dhand of Telus; Best Employer of the Year is Sutherland Global Services Philippines; and Best Company of the Year is Convergys Philippines.
Having won three times in a category, two companies were elevated to the Hall of Fame for Best Filipino-owned Company of the Year awarded to Pointwest Technologies and for Best Company of the Year given to Convergys Philippines.
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Pointwest Technologies client base are companies from Japan, Australia and Philippine government agencies. The company opened a digital center in the Rockwell Business Center in Ortigas, and inaugurated its second digital center at UP-Ayala Land Technohub in Quezon City. Developing digital products, Pointwest released Easimed, a mobile app that allows health-care plan members to locate medical facilities and professionals who honor their health card. The company also began beta testing Autoparq, a parking locator and slot-reservation mobile app. Arko, Pointwest’s multiawarded weather hazard-monitoring app, earned a Silver Award in the 2015 Asean ICT Awards.
The Data Management and Analytics team proved itself after finishing in the upper 6 percent of a Kaggle Competition in 2015, known as “the Olympics of Data Science.”
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Convergys is the first company to achieve Hall-of-Fame status in both Best Company and Best Employer (2015) categories. Being recognized as Best Company of the Year brings pride to the work their 63,000 Filipino employees do every day.
The Best Company of the Year Award recognizes all aspects of business-management excellence, such as financial and operational performance; depth and breadth of services, client and employee growth; and company leadership, as well as social responsibility.
Convergys Philippines, which started its operations in 2003, now has 34 sites across Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. The company provides a mix of agent, analytics and technology solutions to Fortune 500 clients from North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, New Zealand and Australia.
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Winners of the International ICT Awards Philippines inspire millions of Filipinos in the industry and transform communities all over
the country.
E-mail: jemain_diaz_de_rivera@yahoo.com.