Our 12 jury members decided on the winners of the 2012 Bobs – Deutsche Welle’s Blog Awards. After an exciting month of voting, the people’s choice winners have been decided, so go check them out! In addition to the User Prizes, the jury of bloggers, media experts and activists also got shut into a conference room for a day to cure the best blogs, and campaigns and media project in the main six multilingual categories.

Blogger and journalist Arash Sigarchi was this year’s big winner, taking the Jury Award for Best Blog with “Window of Anguish” where he writes about human rights, social and political topics about his homeland. Window of Anguish is widely read inside and outside of Iran for its objective view of current events. Currently in Washington, Sigarchi maintains close connections to many sources in Iran.

This year’s other Jury Awards went to:

Best Social Activism Campaign
Free Syrian Blogger& Activist Razan Ghazzawi

Special Topic Award Education and Culture
Fasokan

Best Use of Technology for Social Good
Harassmap

Best Video Channel
Kuang Kuang Kuang

Reporters Without Borders Award
Abu Sufian’s Blog

Go to the Bobs website for more information.

Learning by Ear for Afghanistan is available in Dari and Pashtu.

Asia
Radio Nawa has been signed on as a radio partner in Afghanistan and has been broadcasting DW’s Pashtu program since the middle of March. Radio Nawa is a subsidiary of the Saba Media Organization that specializes in informational programming and is available in 20 of the 34 provinces in Afghanistan. Along with the nightly DW broadcast, Radio Nawa will be broadcasting “Learning by Ear” once a week in Dari in Pashtu.

MioTV in Singapore has integrated the all-English television channel DW into their IPTV line-up. MioTV is considered a pioneer in the realm of IPTV in Asia and provides programming to the culturally-diverse public in Singapore. It is a subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) – one of the largest in Asia.

The Indonesian cable provider Megavision has also integrated DW’s English chanel into ist line-up and broadcasts it 24 hours daily. Megavision bundles international and local television channels for viewers in Bandung, Bogor, Semarang and Malang.

Europe
Euromaxx is now available in most of Russia as the result of a new partnership with STP-Content. The Russian syndication network is the largest in Russia and provides content for regional TV networks in. This will make Euromaxx available to more than 40 million viewers throughout Russia. The Russian version of the award-winning lifestyle show is being produced by Kanal 100TV in St. Petersberg.

America
DW has a new online partner in Brazil with O Povo. DW will provide a content box for the website as well as Global Ideas videos in Portuguese. O Povo started off as a daily newspaper in 1928 and has expanded to include three radio stations and one television station. The website has more than two million unique visitors monthly.

DW has once again been recognized for its work with Euromaxx. This past weekend, the six-part series “The XX Factor” received a Platinum Remi Award at the 45^th Annual WorldFest – Houston International Film Festival. Euromaxx reporter Nadja Scholz, who hosted the series, was in Houston to accept the award from festival director Hunter Todd. The XX Factor takes a look at six women in Europe who have had successful careers in typically male-dominated industries – from DJ to auto designers.

This is the 10^th time that Euromaxx has received an award at the WorldFest Houston.

DW was once again recognized for its music documentary The Beethoven Project – this time at the New York Festivals International Television and Film Awards. The film received the Silver World Medal in the category “The Arts”. This is the 14^th award for the four-part documentary, which focuses on star conductor Paavo Järvi and selected members of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

Global Ideas also picked up a “Finalist Certificate” in the category “Environment & Ecology”.

DW and members of the jury from the Bobs – the DW Blog Awards – will be on stage at this year’s re:publica from May 2-4. The three-day digital media festival will take place for the sixth consecutive time in Berlin. Here is a short list of the panels in which DW and Bobs jury members are participating in:

From dissent to disillusionment
Thursday, May 3
3:00 – 4:00 p.m. – Stage 1
Leila Nachawati
Claire Ulrich (Jury)
Tarek Amr (Jury)
Hosted by Zulfikar Abbany

Revolution on hold
Friday, May 4
11:15-12:15 a.m. – Stage 1
Isaac Mao (Jury)
Arash Abadpour (Jury)
Markus Löning
Ingo Mannteufel
Hosted by Kristin Zeier

Keynote: How Sharism is unleashing liberty
Friday, May 4
12:30-1:00 p.m. – Stage 1
Isaac Mao (Jury)

Keynote: The borders of the global village
Friday, May 4
1:00 -1:30 p.m. – Stage 1
Shahidul Alam (Jury)

What started as a “class reunion” of bloggers, Internet activists, and researchers has become Germany’s largest and most prominent conference on the future of our society and all things digital. re:publica attracts over 3,000 participants but has preserved an open and familiar atmosphere. re:publica is the quality conference with a festival feel.