The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 2022 Prize Awarding Ceremony was held on June 1 in Geneva, Switzerland. On behalf of "The COVID-19 Knowledge & Data Hub" of the Consultation Committee for the United Nations of China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), Dr. ZHANG Wenjian, Assistant Secretary- General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), received the award at the ceremony. As one of the 18 databases of the hub, seamless prediction database developed by the State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG)of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences shared the Champion Award in the category of E-science.

The World Summit on the information society (WSIS) is a global multi stakeholder exchange platform co-organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and other UN organizations. It is committed to advancing the sustainable development of global information society. The WSIS Prizes contest consists of 18 categories, covering wide fields including information and communication infrastructure, information acquisition and capacity building. Each category awards one Winning and four Champion projects. Due to the pandemic, the awarding conference of the WSIS 2022 awarded the winning projects in 2020, 2021 and 2022. "The COVID-19 Knowledge & Data Hub" of the Consultation Committee for the United Nations of China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) won Champion prize in the category of E-Science in 2021. In 2021, a total of 1, 270 projects from 89 countries were submitted for the contest, 5 projects in the E-science won, which includes one Wining and four Champion prizes.

The award certificate

On January 31, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the COVID-19 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The Consultant Committees on Communication and Information Technology (CCIT) and Life Sciences and Human Health (CCLH) of China Association for Sciences and Technology (CAST) for the United Nations jointly initiated COVID-19 Knowledge & Data Hub immediately. Professor GONG Ke, President of World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) and Chairman of CCIT led the initiative. Dozens of experts from related disciplines, medical institutes and journals and private sectors participated in the project. Prof. BAO Qing, together with LASG seamless prediction system team from the IAP joined in the project as the Meteorological Information Analysis team.

The COVID-19 Knowledge & Data Hub system used digital technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence to involve over 170 scientific journals to participate in the construction of the World Health Organization’s database of the COVID-19, and timely displayed the academic achievements of China's scientific and technological circles in anti-epidemic research. So far, it has become an academic research hub for COVID-19 knowledge and data with the widest coverage in the world. (http://geodoi.ac.cn/WebEn/NewsInfo.aspx?ID=94)

The core of the LASG seamless prediction system of the Institute of Atmospheric Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the LASG climate system model CAS FGOALS-f2, which is a fully coupled model including the interaction of four major components of atmosphere, ocean, land and sea ice. The prediction results of the system have been applied in national meteorological consultations, and at national and provincial metrological operational platforms. It served major events like the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. In 2021, the system joined the Sub-seasonal to Seasonal Prediction Project (S2S) launched by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and demonstrated rather high performance and timeliness.