The Jury Process

Each Award Category will be judged by a Panel of Jury.

The jury is comprised of eminent personalities from the private and public sector, industries and the academia, and is selected based on their knowledge and expertise.

The Jury Process consists of:

• The process commences from the date of closing of nominations.
• The criteria set out for the Awards program is the general jury criteria that has been set by the Manthan Award committee.
• The Jurors Panel of the respective Award Categories may modify the judging criteria to suit the respective Category in consultation with the Judging Chairman of the Awards.
• The Panels, in consultation with the award Chairman may transfer any nomination received to another Category, to ensure “best fit”.
• The initial judging is through online review of the nominations by the Jury Panel.
• The decision of the Jury will be final and binding.
• The Jurors panel reserves the right not to give an Award for a Category, if the nomination does not meet the standard.
• The final results will be announced during the Award Gala.
• All materials received during the judging process shall remain confidential.

Juror’s Evaluation Criteria

Each nomination goes through a comprehensive process of mulltiple levels of screening based on various criteria related to Content, Interface, Technology, Design, & Accessibility:

• Content: quantify matching quality of content and services delivery, relevance of content and its utility value
• Interface: usability, user friendly, easy surfing features, interactive nature
• Technical specialty: Innovative design with unique features of applications having user appealing features
• Design: Design of applications and devices having larger user preference, aesthetic value with multimedia and other features with audio‐visuals, graphics
• Accessibility: cost effectiveness matching social and economic capital of different user groups with diverse needs in different income brackets.

Manthan Award South Asia 2010 Grand Jury – Profiles

Samanth Subramanian
Mint
Subramanian is the deputy editor at Mint, the New Delhi-based business daily. He has an undergraduate degree in journalism from Pennsylvania State University and a graduate degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He has written for, among other publications, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, the Far Eastern Economic Review, Newsweek, The National, and The Hindu. His first book, “Following Fish: Travels around the Indian Coast,” was published by Penguin Books in May 2010 to critical acclaim.

Usha Rani Vyasulu Reddy
ICT for Development Consultant
Until July 2010, Ms. Reddi was the Professor in Education, and Director, Centre for Human   Development, Administrative Staff College of Hyderabad. She has also been the DIRECTOR of COMMONWEALTH EDUCATIONAL MEDIA CENTRE FOR ASIA, NEW DELHI and also associated herself with Osmania University as the PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR of AUDIO VISUAL RESEARCH CENTRE. Some of the projects undertaken during her work phase in CEMCA includes UNESCO consultant for the reconstruction of the Educational Radio and Television of Afghanistan; Social Accountability in Urban Governance:  Indian Case Studies.  Compendium Prepared for the World Bank Institute, New Delhi and Report on the Structure and Functions of the National Institute of Tourism and Hospitality Management (NITHM), Consultancy assignment undertaken while part of ASCI etc.

Amir Ullah Khan
Bangalore Management Academy
Amir Ullah Khan is an Electronics and Communication Engineer from Osmania University. He studied at the Institute of Rural Management at Anand and has a PhD in Economics and Business Studies from the Jamia Millia University. He has worked as Researcher for the Ministry of Finance, Government of India and the UNDP at Project LARGE (Legal Adjustments and Reforms for Globalizing the Economy). He then was Academic Head at the Indian School of Finance and Management, after which he worked with Encyclopedia Britannica as Executive Director and Editor and then with the India Development Foundation. He is now Dean and Director Research at the Bangalore Management Academy, Associate Fellow at the India Development Foundation and Adjunct Professor of Business and Law at the Edith Cowan University. Amir also teaches at the Centre for Executive Education at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in Delhi. He has worked on various research projects for the European Commission, National Council for Applied Economic Research, Planning Commission and the World Bank and has written on Economics and policy issues. His latest book for SAGE is titled The WTO deadlocked: Understanding the Dynamics of International Trade.

Rini Simon Khanna
Independent Broadcast Media Professional
Rini Simon Khanna, has majored in English literature from Delhi University and has done her post graduation in History. She also has a PG diploma in Journalism IIMC, New Delhi.
With a career that spans three decades now, Rini began producing and hosting programmes and interviews on India’s National Radio at 13 and was soon selected to read the Prime time National News on All India Radio. In addition she does commentary on prestigious occasions such as Independence day, Republic day etc for television and radio.   She was handpicked from Radio to anchor the National news on Delhi Doordarshan, the premier Indian television channel.  In addition to presenting news, Rini is an experienced Voice talent, rendering commentary and voiceovers for documentaries, advertising films and feature-films. She also anchors international and national conferences, cultural shows and seminars for prestigious organizations, UN agencies, corporate groups and Government agencies.

Rajneesh De
Cyber Media
Rajneesh De is currently working with the Cyber Media group as an editor of The DQ Week and DQ Channels. The DQ week is a weekly newspaper in four editions (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai) targeted at the IT channel community and resellers. DQ Channels is a fortnightly magazine targeted at the solution providers and Tier 2 service providers.  He has previously worked as an Associate Editor with Dataquest magazine for seven years, where he was also bringing out a separate monthly supplement on Governance. Apart from being associated in various capacities with the Cyber Media group since the last seven years, he has also worked with the Business Publications Division of the Indian Express in Mumbai, Jasubhai Group for CHIP magazine (also in Mumbai) and CD-based CBTs as a content developer. His Alma mater includes Presidency College, Kolkata and the Calcutta University.

Ananya Raihan
D.Net, Bangladesh
Dr. Ananya Raihan is currently the Executive Director of D.Net and Member Secretary of Executive Committee of D.Net. Dr. Raihan completed his MS in Economics (specialization: Economic Cybernetics) in 1990 and was awarded Ph.D. in Economics in 1994 from V.M. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics, National Academy of Science, Ukraine. Dr. Raihan started his professional career at Kharkov State University, Ukraine as an Assistant Professor in 1993. He also served as a Research Fellow, at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a civil society think tank in Bangladesh, and immensely contributed at Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM) as an Associate Professor and Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) as a consultant.
He performed professional works for a number of international and regional organizations including UNCTAD, WTO-ITC, SAARCFINANCE, OXFAM, CENTAD, SAPANA, SCCI, UNESCO and ICTSD. He has a diversified research interest which includes access to information and knowledge, international trade, financial sector reform, corporate social responsibility and SME development. Dr. Raihan was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship in 2004 in recognition of his contribution as a social innovator in the area of ICT for the rural community. He was one of the founder members and first Secretary General of Bangladesh Telecentre Network (BTN), which aims to build up information and knowledge system for the poor and marginalized by 2011 under its Mission 2011.  Dr. Raihan is instrumental in developing the “Pallitathya Model”, concept of “Benefit on Investment (BOI)” and many other social development models. He is currently the chair of core group of Global IK-Mediary Network. He is a member of Digital Bangladesh Task Force.  He is also a member of Community Informatics, a global Journal.

Indumini Kodikara
ICTA, Sri Lanka
Indumini started her carrier as a Market Researcher covering all sectors of products and services. Her experience runs back to 12 years out of which 9 years is in e marketing at the Export Development Board (EDB) specially promoting e-Commerce Services to the Export Sector. As a Deputy Director at EDB she played a key role in implementing the EU-Sri Lanka Organic Agriculture Project. She is presently working as a Project Manager at Information & Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka implementing and monitoring ICT4D Projects for the grassroots. Her interests were design and use of innovative information Communication Technologies to support the societal level communities. Indumini graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, with a second class upper in 2007. She also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayawardenapura, Sri Lanka.

Ashis Sanyal
DIT
Ashis Sanyal has a Master of Technology degree in Microwave Communications Engineering from Calcutta University. He started his professional career as an Engineer in Ministry of Communications through Indian Engineering Services in 1975 and worked in various capacities in the areas of radio spectrum management and related fields, terrestrial microwave and satellite communication network planning and management. During 1982-2000, he worked in the areas of Electromagnetic Interference and Compatibility and Millimeter wave Electronics. Since the year 2001 his responsibilities in the Department of Information Technology are in the areas of implementation of e-Governance Projects related to various social and economic sectors in various States of India. He is responsible for drafting Govt. Policy Guidelines, Strategy and Framework for Core e-Governance Infrastructure related to e-Governance Services. He is the Mission Leader of the 850 million USD Core e-Gov Infrastructure Project of State Wide Area Networks involving 29 States and 6 Union Territories and also the alternate Mission Leader for the 1.4 billion USD project of establishing 100,000 Common Services Centres in the rural India, under the National e-Governance Plan of the Government of India.
Mr. Sanyal published more than 45 technical papers in various areas of Electronics, Communication Engineering, System Design and e-Governance activities in National & International journals; participated in International Conferences and Workshops in UK, USA, Germany, Poland, Cameroon, South Korea, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Peoples Republic of China, Italy, Malaysia, Switzerland, Ethiopia and Singapore. Recognised as the ‘e-Governance Person of the Year 2008’ by the Dataquest magazine, Shri Sanyal was a recipient of UNDP Fellowship at National Institute of Standardization & Technology, Boulder (USA) in 1991 and also undergone Chief Information Officer Training in e-Governance in Korea in July 2003.

V K Madhavan
Chirag
V K Madhavan’s  interests include agriculture and rural livelihoods, education, community based institutions, the rural development sector and international politics – in which Madhavan received his Masters from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Madhavan is the Executive Director of the Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (Chirag) a not-for-profit organisation that works in the Kumaun Himalayas. In the past he has worked with Urmul Trust and its affiliates in western Rajasthan for 8 years; on policy issues with ActionAid  and on the issue of women and governance with The Hunger Project. Madhavan is a Trustee of The Action Northeast Trust (The ANT) -an organization that works amidst largely tribal communities in Assam and a founder member of No Pesticide Management Initiative.

Desi S Valli
net4india
Desi S Valli is one among the most successful Internet executives in India. He has an Engineering degree in Electronics & communications and has a MBA in Marketing Management. He started his professional career in a small start-up organization in Delhi, his initial interest in network design and integration gave him a chance to get involved in modern, developing technologies, and specifically Internet technologies. His contribution to the Networking industry gave him an opportunity to join Net4 India Ltd, as a founding member, in the year 1999. After his initial feat in the technological wing of the organization, He was entrusted with additional responsibilities in the area of Sales & business development, in 2004. Today, Net4, a BSE listed Company, is one of India’s leading players in IP Communications Services providing a wide range of quality, customer-focused and reliable Internet related services. With a Pan India presence, the company now encompasses a wide array of IP communication solutions and services such as Leased Line and Fixed Wireless Access, VoIP Solutions, Call Shops, Data Center services, Web Site Hosting, Corporate Messaging Solutions and Domain Name Registration. Being the only profitable Internet services company since its inception, Net4, having a customer base of more than 2,50,000 business customers, an annual turnover of more than `.1.95 billion and an average growth rate of 39%, has come a long way under his operations. He is the secretary of the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI). He is a member of Technical advisory committee of NIXI (National Internet Exchange of India, which is a government funded company with a mandate for optimally utilizing the Internet infrastructure within the country). Through his expertise and exposure to internal ICT markets, he is an active participant in the discussion forums of TRAI, on its policy formation processes.

Mehul Gupta
IAMAI
Mehul Gupta has been working with IAMAI for past 4 years .He looks after research, safe surfing initiative and is the business head for Thinking Aloud!-a monthly magazine published by the association. Mehul is a Management Graduate from Apeejay School of Marketing and started his career with CII, an apex business association. At CII he was part of the IT practice and was involved with the digital divide initiative of the association Shiksha India.

Rajat Kathuria
ICRIER
Rajat Kathuria has been with IMI since May 24, 1995. He is Professor of Economics and was Consultant with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for eight years. After completing his Ph.D in Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park, he worked as a Consultant to the World Bank in Washington, before joining IMI. His areas of interest are Trade in Services, Competition Policy and Regulatory Economics.His most recent publication deals with negotiation strategy for telecommunication services in the WTO from an Indian perspective. He is a founder member of Broadband Society for Universal Access. He has published articles in both national and international journals. He was intensively involved in the process of telecom liberalization and tariff reform in India and has lectured on the subject both in India and abroad.

Pranesh Prakash
Centre for Internet and Society
Pranesh Prakash (Programme Manager) is a graduate with a degree in Arts and Law from National Law School, Bangalore, with a keen interest in the law, economics, and culture of intellectual property rights.  He helped found the Indian Journal of Law and Technology, and was part of its editorial board for two years.  He is most interested in interdisciplinary research on IP and property law, freedom of speech, and privacy. He has worked with practising lawyers, civil society organizations, and law firms.

Rajen Varada
CEO – Labournet
Rajen Varada has completed his graduation in arts with specialization in computer graphics. He has over 15 years of experience in the social development sector, to which he brings a mix of technology awareness and practical applications for rural and urban marginalized communities. Rajen Varada was until recently the resource person and moderator for the United Nations Solution Exchange ICTD community. He has since joined Labournet as its CEO. Mr. Varada has earlier been the project manager in United Nations Children’s Fund, (UNICEF) Hyderabad. His work in UNICEF has been widely acknowledged and has won the national Manthan award in 2005 and international World summit award in e-health for the development of an ICT package for health called   “Sisu Samrakshak”.  Rajen Varada is the founding director of Technology for the People (TFTP), a Non governmental organisation in South India that works towards providing livelihood options for deprived communities by upgrading traditional skills to match modern market requirements.
He serves as an advisor member on the Board of Directors of:

1. Technology for the People (TFTP), NGO working in AP & Karnataka Second Byte, a not for profit company which deals with e waste management and refurbished computers
2. Star features “My school” magazine – which publishes school magazines for rural schools.
3. Digital Empowerment Foundation – Delhi, Promotes the national awards for e content
4. North East Development Foundation – Foundation aimed at development of north eastern states.
5. Technology for Development

Jayalakshmi Chittoor
ICT for Development Consultant
Capacity Building and Change Management expert, KM Specialist in ICT4D domain area. Was with Government, Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt of India, in the Research and Development Statistics Division (1987-89). Consultant to TIFAC, setting up the Expertsbase and expertisebase online information system in 1989. Founder Board Member of Energy Environment Group, a grassroots NGO in Una, HP, India (1983-2002). Also served as elected Treasurer and Director for the society for two terms.
Worked in National Coordination Unit for Beijing 95 – the UN Conference on Women, as Information, Documentation and Media specialist to prepare Indian NGO participation in the UN Conference (1993-96). Worked with National Foundation for India (1996-mid 98) as Programme Officer, Development Communications. First as Assistant Coordinator (1998-99)and later as Networking Specialist (1999-2002) with Mountain Forum (http://mtnforum.org) building an institutional process for an essentially online network of networks. Worked with IDRC’s Bellanet programme (www.bellanet.org) as Senior Programme Specialist (2003-04)and later as Regional Asia Advisor (Consultant), as a team member of the dgroups programme (www.dgroups.org).

Rajnesh D Singh
ISOC
Rajnesh Dhirendra Singh is a Fiji-born entrepreneur and engineer of Indian descent. He holds several positions in the regional and international Information and Communications Technology community including the Internet Society and IPv6 Forum, and is an active Internet advocate and speaker on Internet technologies.
Singh is the co-Founder of Avonsys, an Information and Communications Technology outsourcing firm serving the US West Coast and Chief Operating Officer of PATARA, a private sector firm involved in Information and Communications Technology solutions serving the Pacific region. He also serves as a Consultant to the Internet Society and is also involved with other companies and organizations including private equity and venture capital firms.
Singh is also a consultant to the United Nations Asia and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (UN APCICT) where he authored Module 4 of the Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders.
In 2003 he was seconded to serve as Project Manager ICT for the 2003 South Pacific Games which were held in Suva, Fiji where PATARA was an Official Supplier and corporate sponsor.
Singh is a frequent speaker at regional and international events on topics related to the Internet and technology and has spoken at events such as Telecom Asia, PTC, eIndia, World Cyber Security Summit, Internet Governance Forum and INETs and divides his time between Suva, Fiji and Delhi, India.

Tulika Pandey
DIT
An Electronics and Telecommunications Engineer, Tulika has been with the Government of India since 1992 and holds the position of Director with the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology.

Rajesh Chharia
ISPAI
Mr. Rajesh Chharia was elected the President of the Internet Service Providers Association of India in September 2006, is presently also helping the association and the industry grow for ISP’s in the same post. Prior to this he has also served as the Vice President for the same organization in 2002. He has also played a major role in creating National Internet Exchange of India, presently he is one of the Director of NIXI. From the platform of ISPAI and NIXI he raised a lot of development issues for the Internet Industry and got the same solved resulting growth of Industry.
Apart from association he is also connected with following positions:
• Executive Council Member of ISPAI (Internet Service Providers Association of India) since 2001
• Member of Technical Committee of ISPAI
• Member Regional Advisory Committee, RAC, Central Excise and Service Tax Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India.
• Director NIXI (National Internet Exchange India)
• Elected Member of CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) Associations Council
• Member of Telecom Committee of FICCI
• Member of Telecom Committee of ASSOCHAM
• Member PRSG Committee of DIT, New Delhi
• Member of DCC of TEC, DOT New Delhi
• Member of .IN Advisory Committee, Marketing Committee, NIXI Corporate Governance Committee, Investment and Advisory Group.
• Member of Joint Working Group for setting up of National Internet Registry (NIR) in India by ISPAI & NIXI.
• Proposed Policy Prop – 053 changing minimum IPv4 allocation size to /22 at Taipei Taiwan (25th – 29th February 08) remotely, which got approved.
He has, today, more than 10 years of experience in telecommunications and information technology, and has acquired working for different organizations in different countries. Further he is looking keenly for development of Broad Band and telephony in rural parts of India which is 70% of the total population of India.
Now, he, along with other technocrats, has started a new venture which is pioneering development & deployment of high-density carrier grade multi-play switching systems including multi-million lines Class 5 Packet switches and Class 4 media gateway to provide Video Telephone, Surveillance, streaming etc.

Dr. (Mrs.) Parveen Pannu
Institute of Home Economics, University of Delhi
Parveen Pannu is an Associate Professor at the Department of Communication and Extension, Institute of Home Economics, University of Delhi, India. Her Ph.D ‘Ironing Enterprise and Its Management’ University of Delhi, constituted study of Ironing micro enterprises existing within the unorganized sector. She is teaching Communication Technologies, Extension, Journalism and Gender Studies to students at the undergraduate level.
Presently, she is Principal Investigator for a 2 yr major research project entitled “Assessment, awareness and action against female feticide for achieving gender equality and women’s human rights”, funded by UGC. The focus of the project is on development of ICTs for mounting a campaign against the horrendous practice of female foeticide. She is also PI-II for a 11/2 year project “Creating awareness about lifestyle modification and prevention, management of chronic degenerative diseases among elderly: use of radio messages”, funded by DST. She has been Co-PI for a 21/2 yr project ‘Gender Specific Impacts of Climate Change on Household Water Poverty Index ’, Ministry of Forests and Environment, Government of India. She has co-authored a book titled ‘ICT4D” (2010), published by I.K.International, New Delhi. The book provides a comprehensive overview on the ICTs and discusses how the digital revolution can be used for development. She has been the coordinator for the successful short-term certificate course, ‘Radio Jockeying’, offered at the Department of Communication and Extension, Institute of Home Economics in 2008 and 2009. She is guiding a Ph.D student. Incidentally, she has also co-authored a book, ‘Interior Design and Decoration’, CBS Publishers, Delhi (January 2006).

Balendu Shrivastava
Research Director, eTechnology Group, IMRB
Balendu Shrivastava has been been with IMRB International for about a decade. He spearheads the Research Division of eTechnology group of IMRB. The eTechnology Group of IMRB International is one of the very few groups that has constantly monitored the technology market and actually estimated this difficult market quite well during the last few years.

Manthan Award South Asia 2010 Grand Jury Film