Force celebrates HK winning IT award

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Crime Wing held a reception on May 17 to celebrate the Major Incident Investigation and Disaster Support System's (MIIDSS) contribution to winning the Stockholm Challenge Award 2003-04.

Hong Kong's entry to the Award, entitled "Policing Disease", has won the top honour in the Health category after competing with 107 finalists, of whom 16 were in the same category. The entry featured the innovative application of MIIDSS in collaboration with the Case Contact Information System of the Department of Health and the Hospital Authority's eSAR System for tracing potential SARS carriers and identifying buildings that could become infection "hot-spots" during last year's outbreak.

A panel of international IT experts had judged and evaluated entries on four criteria - innovation, user need, sustainability and transferability. The panel has been impressed by the innovative application of MIIDSS, which is used to track down criminals, and turned it into a smart tracking system to identify the chain of human transmission of SARS and infection "hot-spots".

The Stockholm Challenge Award is an international award programme for human betterment through the application of information technology projects in an innovative way worldwide.

Congratulating the officers who helped trace the sources of SARS contact, Commissioner Lee Ming-kwai also praised all officers for giving exemplary services to the community in fighting the SARS crisis last year.

He pointed out that this was a classic example of how flexible and creative police officers had been in serving the community.

Members of the Hong Kong delegation proudly show off the Stockholm Challenge Award