The Hong Kong Observatory won ICT Awards for its mobile app MyObservatory

9 April 2013

The MyObservatory mobile app won the Certificate of Merit and the Special Mention (Public Sector Information) prize in the Best Mobile Apps Award in the Hong Kong Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Award 2013. The Hong Kong ICT Awards recognize, promote and commend the excellent achievements to which ICT professionals and organizations contribute. The awards were presented at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on 8 April.

The MyObservatory mobile app was developed by the Observatory to enable members of the public access to the latest weather information anytime and anywhere. The app provides personalized weather services, thereby allowing users to obtain the latest weather information specific to their locations. The app also comes along with a suit of services from the Observatory such as 7-day forecast, forecast track for tropical cyclones, world major city forecasts, imageries for radar, satellite, lightning locations, etc. By activating weather warning notification service, alert messages would be delivered to user's smartphone automatically whenever there is any change in weather warning signals. In 2012, the "Location-based Rain Forecast" service was introduced, through which users could easily get hold of the rainfall forecast in the coming two hours specific to their actual or selected location.

The MyObservatory had been highly popular with more than 3.3 million copies downloaded. In 2012, the visitor statistics of the app stood at 9.2 billion, which is around 5 times the figure in 2011.

The MyObservatory mobile app is free for download on iOS and Android platforms at the following links: iOS , Android

Diagram 1: Vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Wireless Technology Industry Association, Dr Lawrence Cheung (second from right), presented the awards to Dr CM Cheng, Assistant Director of the Observatory (second from left), Mr Armstrong Cheng, Senior Scientific Officer (first from right) and Mr. Ben Or, Scientific Officer (first from left)

Diagram 2: MyObservatory mobile app