(Seychelles News Agency) - Five Seychellois web enthusiasts of different ages will not be sleeping much tonight as they dig deep into their creative side to come up with the best website in 24 hours.

They are part of two groups that have taken up the challenge to participate in the first ever Seychelles Webcup which got underway at noon (local time) at Care House in the capital of Victoria.

It was only moments before the challenge began that the organizers revealed the topic, to create a political campaign portal for the United Webcup Confederation to elect its president, that had been kept a secret. The keen participants will unleash their creativity to design their website on the subject, the same theme participants in 5 other Indian Ocean islands are also working on until midday tomorrow.

The Webcup is an annual competition initiated by the Webcup association of Reunion Island in 2010.

The French overseas department in the Indian Ocean, came up with this fun and educational event to promote Information and Communication technology (ICT).

Last year three other Indian Ocean island nations joined the Webcup namely Mauritius, Madagascar and Mayotte.

In 2014 the popularity of the event is getting bigger with another two Indian Ocean islands, Seychelles and the Comoros, joining the fun.

The Webcup is designed for anyone with an interest in ICT be it amateurs, students or professionals who can participate as individuals or teams of not more than 4 members.

For this first Seychelles Webcup, the first team is made up of Herve Chang-Yunn, Rondy Monnaie, Alvin Lebon and Anisha Mangroo while for the second team Jean- Francois Rose will have to do the best he can all alone after his two team mates who had registered failed to turn up.

“There is a lot of work to be done in 24 hours, to do content, graphics and programming of the website, that’s why it’s easier to have a group of people working together, though there have been cases of individuals taking on the challenge in past competitions,” Gilbert Lebon, Managing Director of VCS, one of the main ICT companies in Seychelles that has taken on the challenge to organize the Webcup told SNA.

“We would have loved to have more participants, but that’s ok as it’s the first time we are doing this…..next time we would like to see more young people, those at university, those studying web programming….amateurs in general to push them forward to make them become better at what they do.”

Herve Chang-Yunn, Rondy Monnaie, Alvin Lebon and Anisha Mangroo concenrate on their website (Patrick Joubert, Seychelles News Agency) Photo license: Attribution

When the competition ends at noon tomorrow the participants will get 5 minutes to present their website to the panel of judges who will then question them about their project before they decide on a winning team.

Jean- Francois Rose works on his solo project (Patrick Joubert, Seychelles News Agency) Photo license: Attribution

The main prize up for grabs is a chance to represent Seychelles in the grand final of the 2014 Webcup alongside other winners from the 5 other participating Indian Ocean nations.

The President of Webcup association Fabien Degieux who has come all the way from Reunion island to support the Seychelles’ first participation in the event confirmed that the finals will take place in Mauritius, on October 12, 2014.

“The finals will be an opportunity for the groups to mingle and learn about each other’s economy and culture. We hope that this competition will show the local businesses that there is no need to look for professionals abroad to build their website, but there are people locally who are capable of creating great websites,” said Degieux.

The Principal Secretary in the Seychelles Department for Information and Communications Technology Benjamin Choppy also welcomed the initiative whereby the private sector organizes these competitions to increasing visibility of the local ICT sector.

“It is also a chance to help improve the skills of the participants, and hopefully they will be able to demonstrate their capabilities to participating at a regional level. There are many talented people in Seychelles, much more than we get credit for… with this I would like to wish the participants good luck,” said Choppy.

All of the islands participating except Seychelles have their own ICT association which organizes the Webcup.
VCS, has been approached as one of the main companies in Seychelles to coordinate the event in the absence of such an association locally.

“Last year I attended the finals of the competition in Reunion……..I am currently pushing for such an ICT association to be set up locally …..hopefully this year we can bring all the ICT companies together to sign an agreement ……but in the meantime VCS has decided to take on the responsibility to organize this first Seychelles Webcup.”

 VCS is the Seychelles company which is responsible for registering all websites with the Seychelles .SC country code domain name.