Vienna: UNDP has received a prestigious Knowledge Management Award 2012 in Vienna, Austria for its “outstanding efforts and achievements to promote the idea of knowledge societies”.
Speaking during the presentation ceremony, Managing Director of Knowledge Management Austria Andreas Brandner noted that “UNDP’s role in connecting UN Organizations with Knowledge Management initiatives like Teamworks is “the most promising knowledge management initiative within the UN focusing on knowledge networking within a global knowledge partnership”.
He went further by commending UNDP’s “effort on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the
Millennium Development Goals, to document MDG (uneven) achievements with case studies, good stories, supported by videos, and other media, which were tremendous and outstanding within the UN”.
UNDP’s Practice Leader for Knowledge and Innovation Giulio Quaggiotto travelled from UNDP Slovaki to receive the award on May 31st during a two day Conference on Knowledge Management and Knowledge policy-making. He delivered a keynote speech on UNDP’s approach to knowledge and innovation to the audience of policy makers, private sector, NGOs, researchers and others passionate about KM, highlighting the importance of focusing on people and cultural change, becoming a real time organisation by harnessing the power of social networks and the digital footprint, and harnessing the knowledge outside of UNDP through initiatives such as the RioDialogues recently launched by the Government of Brazil in advance of the Rio+20 Global Conference on Sustainable Development, and powered by UNDP’s Teamworks. He also spoke of the challenges and gains that can be achieved through the effective use of KM tools, both digital and traditional, and UNDP’s unique and innovative responses to these challenges.
One such innovation is Teamworks. With over 33,000 users across UNDP, the UN and its development partners, Teamworks is a knowledge sharing platform which allows users to rapidly obtain information, support and advice, while also sharing their solutions and experiences. Teamworks is now available to UNDP staff and, increasingly, to UN agencies and development partners across the world.
The Knowledge Management Award is presented annually by Knowledge Management Austria to one personality with outstanding achievements in the field of knowledge politics and knowledge management, as well as to one international organization with a global impact on knowledge societies. Since the foundation of the Austrian Knowledge Partnership, two other UN organizations have received the award, namely the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2010 and UNESCO in 2011.