NAWRAS WINS BEST ICT STRATEGIC PORTAL  

Nawras, the Middle East Mobile Operator of the Year, has been awarded ‘Best Strategic ICT Portal’ at the Pan Arab Web Awards announced this week at the Burj Al Arab, in Dubai. The awards committee in association with Microsoft, MSN Mena and BSA presented the 2008 PAWA to recognise excellence in web design and development skills, showcasing creativity and the best website in the Pan Arab Region.  This is the second time, in the company’s short history that the Nawras website www.nawras.om has picked up an award at this prestigious event. 

Nawras Chief Technical Adviser Shiekh Abdullah Al Rawahy and Online Manager Tariq Al-Barwani collected the prestigious Golden Trophy on behalf of Nawras.  Al-Rawahy expressing his delight, said: “This is a great honour and another solid recognition of the professionalism and creativity that are vital ingredients of everything we do at Nawras. More than 1.1 million customers benefit from the innovation and pleasingly different Nawras way of doing things and this acknowledgement from the IT industry is further encouragement for us to continue to maintain a website that reflects the qualities we aspire to achieve in our business everyday. “  

The Nawras website has been designed so that every part can be accessed easily from the dynamic homepage.  It is constantly reviewed and revised to reflect the latest information such as roaming partners (for example, 309 International Roaming Partners in 149 countries), details of exciting offers or the latest 3G+ products and services.

Using Omani currency to list prices, visitors to the website get transparent, clear and accurate answers to queries.  Practical help sections have been put together to guide users effortlessly through all aspects of the innovative Nawras mobile experience. 

The PAWA competition was launched in 2004 and just one year later, Nawras proudly won the ‘Golden Award for Information and Communication Technology’, an impressive accomplishment under normal circumstances but even more so, taking into account that Nawras had yet to complete its first year of business! 

This year’s prestigious event was attended by the winners of the competition in addition to VIPs in the ICT field, governmental personalities as well as economics, academics, diplomatic, social figures, bankers, media and other guests from the Pan Arab Region.  The occasion was a platform for Nawras to showcase the IT skills present in the Sultanate of Oman, especially as Nawras was the only company from the country to be nominated as well as actually winning an award. 

An important aim of the competition is to encourage all sectors to be involved in the digital economy, which wholeheartedly supports the aims of the government in spreading awareness and extending the use of Internet Technology in the Sultanate.  In this area, Nawras has actively shown responsibility by playing its part in a number of different ways with Online Manager Tariq Al-Barwani, personally instrumental in a number of projects to promote this message countrywide. 

During the last 12 months, Nawras has received numerous awards including Middle East Mobile Operator of the Year, Middle East Business Achievement Award for Corporate Social Responsibility and for the third time in a row, the golden award for the ‘Software and Telecommunications’ category at the Oman Web Awards 2007. 

Nawras currently covers 96% of the population with its world-class network, using national roaming where necessary and always with Nawras great value.