HI~Arts beat off stiff competition from throughout the UK to win the 'public sector' category of the Broadband Britain Challenge Awards on Friday, following on from its success in the Scottish heats in July.

The Inverness-based arts development agency won the award in recognition of its Arts Journal website with its range of online services, which, with the help of broadband technology, provides both support and information to the arts community in the Highlands and Islands.

The journal was launched earlier this year to bring the widest possible coverage of arts and culture in the area to a domestic and international audience, and now receives over 3,000 visitors to the site a day.

It uses the latest broadband technology to allow HI-Arts' staff to manage and update the site speedily, which means that it is always up-to-date and accurate, making it an essential reference site for its many users in the Highlands and Islands and beyond.

Robert Livingston, HI-Arts director said:  "Winning through from the Scottish final to attend the London event was a fantastic experience in itself for the HI-Arts team. To actually come away from the event with this recognition is a real tribute to all the planning, hard work and creativity which many people across the Highlands and Islands of Scotland have put in to making the HI-Arts website a success.

"In the Highlands and Islands, where the barriers of physical remoteness, long journey times and difficult terrain are not always easy to overcome, initiatives like our online Arts Journal play a crucially important role in bringing people and communities together to share common cultural experiences.

"Following this accolade, we are now seeking sponsorship for our website to ensure that it remains ahead of the game in terms on online provision."

The online services provided by the arts agency have developed in the last eighteen months to include a comprehensive events database, an online gallery guide, discussion boards and a range of resources for practitioners in the arts sector. Future initiatives include the establishment of a regional portal for the crafts sector in the Highlands and Islands, which will form the pilot for a national roll-out of a major online resource for the whole of Scotland. HI-Arts is also investigating the development of online ticketing for events in the Highlands and Islands.

The Broadband Britain Challenge was a nation-wide search to find Britain's brightest ADSL broadband users ­ people who have bettered their lives or the lives of others through the use of ADSL broadband technology at work, at home, in education or anywhere else. 

HI~Arts is supported by Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Scottish Arts Council.

The Arts Journal can be seen at:
www.hi-arts.co.uk

For more information on the competition visit: www.broadbandbritainchallenge.co.uk

Behind the site lies a web content management system designed and supported by Highlands and Islands-based company, SiteKit Solutions of Portree in Skye. www.sitekit.net This content management system itself, contributes to HIE’s and HI-Arts sites’ success. It means that many of the technical aspects of site input can be taken for granted while empowering users and contributors to concentrate on getting key messages across.