Qatari inventor Mohamed al-Jefairi won the 2018 World Summit Awards (WSA) for Digital Innovation as a representative of Qatar through his project encyclopaedia of sign language "Deaf Pedia" for the inclusion and empowerment category.
During a ceremony held to honour the inventor, HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti said that 2018 WSA for Digital Innovation was an international standard for honouring the best local digital innovations that have a great impact on improving communities, expressing pride of all the projects that have won over the past years.
The minister congratulated al-Jefairi for winning the award and raising the name of Qatar at this global forum.
Qatar is the only Gulf country to win an award in the eight categories of this year.
Qatar and Lebanon are the only two countries from the Arab world that won an award.
Deaf Pedia is an open-source sign language platform that can be used by any user around the world in any language and dialect and has been selected among 40 winners out of a total of 430 nominations from 182 participating countries.
Qatar Airways Group chief executive Akbar al-Baker also congratulated the inventor. He pointed out that Qatar Airways, as part of its support to Qatari entrepreneurs and innovators, will support al-Jefairi and his project. 
The WSA for Digital Innovation includes eight categories: government and citizen participation, health and welfare, green environment and energy, business and commerce, education, tourism and culture, urbanisation and smart societies, inclusion and empowerment.
A local jury was formed by the local expert of the WSA and Assistant Undersecretary for Digital Society Development Sector at the Ministry of Transport and Communications Reem al-Mansoori. The jury worked on evaluating the work presented by Qatar and selecting one candidate for each category of the award to participate at the global level.
Al-Jefairi will be honoured at an event in Portugal in March. 
In 2016, two Qatar projects won this award, Accessible Qatar in the category of inclusion and empowerment, and Madar Al-Huruf in the education and learning category.
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