Record nominations received by the Manthan Award
Indiawide selection for the best e-content practices - Manthan Award - received 104 nominations from 21 states for the eight categories prescribed in accordance to the World Summit Award (WSA). The Product nomination process was conducted online through the www.manthanaward.com website, along with sending the relevant CDs, cassettes, floppies required for the evaluation process. The Manthan Award is an initiative of Digital Empowerment Foundation, in association with World Summit Award, PlaNet Finance India and American India Foundation. The eminent experts, chosen to nominate the best of the initiatives from their respective state, actively nominated the initiatives from their region and apart from that the Manthan Award also approached the innovators to nominate their initiatives for the Manthan Award. Out of 104 nominations 95 nominations were found to be valid and were considered for the Jury evaluation process. E-governance category received the maximum of 26 nominations closely followed by E-learning with 25 nominations. In e-inclusion category 19 products were nominated whereas e-health and e-culture received 10 and 9 nominations respectively. Manthan Award received nominations from 21 states covering the length and breadth of the country. The majority of nominations came from the capital of India, New Delhi. New Delhi nominated 20 products followed by Maharastra with 14 nominations. Other major nominators were Karnataka and Gujarat with 13 and 9 nominations respectively. Among others, the states to nominate were Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, Pondicherry, Punjab, Nagaland, Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya, Kerala, Assam, Uttranchal, West Bengal, Orissa, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura. Majority of products were nominated form the Private companies and the Governments both local and national governments. Private companies nominated 31 products whereas the government body nominated 26 initiatives for the Manthan Award. National and International NGOs including the Trust had 21 nominations. The Academic institutions had 11 nominations for the award and the rest are joint initiatives of government, institutes, community help groups etc. Manthan Award has selected the Grand Jury of 16 members responsible for judging and choosing the best practices. The grand juries are: 1. Fredrick Noronha, Founder, Bytes for All 2. Surbhi Sharma, Secretary General ITSMA 3. Madanmohan Rao, Research Director, AMIC 4. Shankar Venkateshwaran, Executive Director - India, America India Foundation 5. Anshul Goel, MBA Student, ICFAI Business School 6. J. Shankar, Azim Premji Foundation 7. Mr. Gared Price Jones, Ashoka Innovators for the Public 8. Anand Swaminathan, Wipro Limited 9. Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IIT Madras, 10. S. Sadagoppan, IIIT Bangalore 11. Rishi Chawla, Country Representative, GIPI India 12. Jaswinder Sandha, JAGRITI 13. Ganesh Natrajan, Managing Director, Zensar Technologies 14. Prof. Anil Gupta, IIM, Ahmedabad 15. Dinesh T.B, Servelots 16. Dr. D.C.Misra, E-Gov Expert The Jury is already in the process of evaluating the nominations since June 1, 2005 onwards and would be submitting their evaluation by June 25 2005. However, the results and the name of the winners would be declared on July 23, 2005, in the one-day conference on "e-content and sustainability" to be held in India International Center, New Delhi. The winners would be awarded in the Manthan Award Gala on the same evening on July 23, 2005. CONTACTS: Manthan Award Secretariat: Dhiraj Sinha, manthanaward@gmail.com Chairman, Manthan Award: Osama Manzar, osamam@gmail.com