Minister of Education II, YB Dato' Seri Idris Bin Jusoh officiated award ceremony of 1CITIZEN Programme participated by over 80,000 students

PUTRAJAYA, 25 February 2014 – The Minister of Education II, YB Dato’ Seri Idris Bin Jusoh officiated the award ceremony for 1CITIZEN Program, organized by the Ministry Of Education (MOE) in cooperation with Prestariang Systems Sdn Bhd (PSSB), to foster national unity via appropriate use of technology in Malaysia last Tuesday.

Portfolio winners of 1CITIZEN program for 2013 were announced and awarded at the event, by YB Dato' Seri Idris Bin Jusoh together with Dato’ Ramli Abbas, Chairman of Prestariang Berhad. As of 31 January 2014, a total of 81,033 students from 79 identified public institutes of higher learning including 20 universities (IPTA), 28 polytechnics and 28 community colleges in Malaysia, as well as 3 private institutes of higher learning (IPTS) had participated in 1CITIZEN Program. Out of which, 53,215 portfolio submissions were received from participants of Season 1 and 2.

Minister of Education II, YB Dato’ Seri Idris Jusoh, Deputy Minister of Education I, YB Datuk Mary Yap Kain Ching, Deputy Minister of Education II, YB Tuan P. Kamalanathan and Chairman of Prestariang Berhad, YBrs. Dato’ Ramli Abbas posing with winners after the prize giving ceremony.

There were nine (9) categories of portfolio winners including Creative Writing, Audio/Song, Photo, Slide Show, Blog Activity, Poster, Video/Animation, Facebook Page and/or any other creative formats (Open Category).

List of Winners for Season 1
Sarah Diyana Marzuki, UiTM (Creative Writing)
Ng Keat Yong & Aaron Lui Teng Wei, UMP (Audio/Song)
Azel Glean Tony & Muhammad Firdaus Rami, UMS (Photo)
Nur Atiqah Nasibah Binti Abu Bakar, UiTM (Blog Activity)

List of Winners for Season 2
Abdul Hazim Zaidani, UMP (Slide Show)
Qamarul Nazrin Harun, UiTM (Poster)
Mohammad Aqeel Safwan Bin Mohamad Zaki & Qamarul Syahmi Bin Kamarudin, UTM (Video/Animation)

“PSSB is proud to be a part of this initiative by MOE under the Department of Higher Education (JPT) to promote the ethics of ICT. With the increasing use of the Internet among youths, digital literacy and Internet etiquette knowledge becomes inevitable. The program was a success as the number of participants had exceeded the initial target of 80,000 students”, said Dato’ Ramli Abbas.

Minister of Education II, YB Dato’ Seri Idris Jusoh congratulating the winners accompanied by YBrs Dato’ Ramli Abbas.

1CITIZEN Program was recently awarded Best of e-Inclusion and e-Community by MSC Malaysia Asia Pacific ICT Awards (MSC Malaysia APICTA) 2013 and went on to represent Malaysia at the Asia Pacific Information and Communication Technology Alliance (APICTA) Awards 2013 held in Hong Kong last November.

The 1CITIZEN Program aims to instil in youths today a sense of 'keNegaraan', collaboration, responsibility and ownership to the communities during their online digital experience; promote youth activism and volunteerism. Participants of the program underwent a minimum of 12 contact-hour training session and upon completion sat for the IC CITIZEN Certification examination.

Winners posing with their winning cheque after the 1CITIZEN Program Awards Ceremony.

The IC CITIZEN Certification was the first certification program in the world specifically designed to produce digitally literate and responsible citizens. This globally benchmarked standard for digital literacy is a home-grown product, owned and developed by PSSB. It inspired Netizens to become critical thinkers who understood ethical consequences of online behaviour. Launched in 2010 for the global market, IC CITIZEN is being marketed via a partnership with Certiport from US to a network of approximately 10,000 centres in 152 countries. To date, IC CITIZEN has a growing list of users in the US, Mexico, Ireland, Turkey, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Brunei.