World Chambers Congress – Sydney 2017
Winners of the World Chambers Competition were announced during the concluding gala dinner of the 10th World Chambers Congress on 21 September in Sydney.
Recognising chambers for their forward-looking approaches to solve some of today’s global challenges, 18 finalists competed across four diverse categories. Each presented their ground-breaking initiatives to an international judging panel, and many of the 1,000 delegates attending the biennial Congress. Ultimately, five chambers walked away as World Chambers Competitionchampions.
The 2017 winners are:
The Brazilian Confederation of Trade and Business Associations for the Best Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project that empowers women in business;
The Business West Chamber of Commerce for the Best Job Creation and Business Development project, which aims to maximise international trade as a means of benefitting business in South West England;
The Hamburg Chamber of Commerce for the Best Education and Training project and their work with refugee integration into the labour market; and
The Dubai Chamber of Commerce for boosting the innovation ecosystem throughout Dubai, and the Pereira Chamber of Commerce for stimulating economic development in their city and region through a targeted marketing campaign for the Best Unconventional projects.
This is the first time in the history of the Competition that the jury has voted for joint winners of a category—a truly “unconventional” surprise. The biennial Competition originally received 53 applications from chambers, representing 27 countries.
Organised by the ICC World Chambers Federation (WCF), the World Chambers Competition is the only awards programme of its kind. WCF Honorary Chair and head of the Competition jury Rona Yircali said: “The need to ideate is now more vital than ever before. Through this international concours, WCF aims to boost chamber creativity and innovation, as well as contribute to the exchange of best practices to help chambers flourish in the face of such adverse and uncertain business and economic conditions.”
In addition to their awards and global acknowledgement throughout the chamber network, each of the winning chambers took home a cash prize of €3,000 to further support their unique initiatives.
