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Manthan-AIF Award 2006
Benchmarks in e-Content development and application
August 5, 2006, New Delhi: Truly unique…Truly finest…A no-nonsense approach… A down-to-earth effort…highly inspiring…not ephemeral either…an event worth to be considered as India’s finest effort in e-Content promotion and integration…all these could sum up well the curtains down of the Manthan-AIF Award 2006, India’s best showcasing and promotional event on e-Content and creativity. For sure, the event for grassroots e-Content promotion and utility is a clear picture of the growing yet churning Indian e-Content movement. The one day event was held on 5th August 2006 in New Delhi.

The Manthan-AIF 2006 is clearly a picture of hard work, diligence, quality and utility vis-à-vis the emerging e-Content atmosphere in the country, whose trace could be now found in our countryside as well. The winning and appreciation list is basket of creativity, sensibility, and sincerity in digging out innovations, a steely outcome of serious yet positive repercussion on the lives of the commoners courtesy Information Communication Technology. The products are vivacious, elements are threadbare and value is infinite if viewed from its creation to its usability phase in due course, may not be a instant tea/coffee item, just make it , drink and swallow it.

The nominations and winning list is a myriad of a beautiful landscape of e-Content creators and their products cut across 250 total nominations; 13 categories; 32 winners; 5 special mentions, and 4 appreciations for community radio initiatives. Regional and cultural representations were equally vivid; 250 nominations from 24 States and Union Territories and one from New York.

The nominations list: an interesting revelation across States and UTs. Maharashtra, Delhi and Uttaranchal topped the list with 52, 31 and 13 nominations while Nagaland, Pondicherry and Chandigarh had 1 nomination each while the rest interspersed in between.

Category wise the nominations and winning list is a salad bowl preparation. E-Governance, e-Inclusion and livelihood, e-learning, e-education, were the top notch ones while e-health, e-news, e-entertainment and few others were the laggards in filing nominations. E-Governance, e-Inclusion & Livelihood and e-Learning took the nomination filing lead.

The Manthan-AIF Award 2006 equally reveals the platforms for e-Content innovations and their delivery. Offline; Web/ Internet; Broadband /online; CD/DVD; Mobile Content; Email; Video conference; LAN or WAN, local radio and Satellite broadcast; Audio video cable are the various technological solutions being utilized for e-Content practices and its distribution. Equally apparent were the cultural and linguistic emergence of e-Content products and services. If the Ananda Utsav site in e-Culture served its audiences in both English and Bengali language, the other picture is of Kannada Logo serving its customers and users in local Kannada language.

The Manthan-AIF 2006 witnessed the presence of technological and other dignitaries who have their presence felt in Information Communication Technology. Dr. R. A. Mashelkar, DG, CSIR; Mr. Wajahat Habibullah, Chief Information Commissioner, India; Prof. Anil Gupta, IIMA and National Innovation Foundation; Mr. Avdhash Kaushal, RLEK; Mr. Sachin Pilot, MP were among the distinguished guests whose presence in the Manthan-AIF Award 2006 added the much needed value and utility to the purpose.

The Manthan-AIF Award 2006 winners list is further interesting from quantitative perspective. E-Governance has got five winners, while e-education has four and e-Entertainment has only one winner. Surprisingly there are no winners in the e-Science category. State wise Maharashtra has the maximum winners of eleven in various categories. Kerala, Andhra Pradesh has one winner each while States like Assam, West Bengal have two winners each.

Initiating, operating and spearheading e-Content practices and popularizing it need not be a frustrating experience in India any longer. On the contrary there is a huge surface and edifice coming up and rapidly growing in the country including in the country side for ICT use and e-Content delivery just waiting to be explored and ploughed better for development and empowerment needs. The Manthan-AIF Award 2006 is a stark display of this emerging e-Content trend and increasing popularity whose appetite could be increasing by the day.

Webel Mediatronics Limited is a winner in the e-Learning category. This West Bengal based organisation has pioneered in the development of integrated system for education of people with visual impairments. The systems address solutions to major obstacles in disseminating Braille education in vernacular languages. As of now, after successfully implementing these systems at around 110 schools in 22 states all over the country, WML has been able to provide necessary infrastructure to the blinds schools to develop unlimited reading material in Braille for visually impaired community. This offline product is available in 13 Indian languages including English.

Throughout the world, Logo is used in teaching programming and graphical concepts to children between the ages of 9-14 yrs and usually English is used medium to teach Logo. English medium students have the advantage of studying Logo in India but Kannada medium (or any other Indian language students) is deprived of learning a programming language. Karnataka based Vishva Kannada Softech, a winner in e-Localisation category has developed a Kannada version of Logo, a programming language at the school level that will tap into this potential and hone student’s skills, especially in rural areas. The Kannada version of Logo is a simple tool to help children understand programming.

Bhojpuria.com is a winner in the e-Culture category. Jharkhand based Infogate Exporters Pvt. Ltd has come out with the World’s first Portal for Bhojpuri Speaking people. The portel claims to provide a global platform for more than 34 Crore Bhojpuri speaking across the Globe. While clicking on to the site one can find News, Bhojpuri Songs, Bhojpuria Dukan, Free E-mail, Bhojpuri E-greetings, ecards, details about Great Bhojpuria people, Bhojpuria culture, Festivals etc.

Merinews is India’s first participatory media platform, where citizen journalists contribute news, interviews, pictures, news analysis, etc. Currently, Merinews, a winner in the e-News category, offers a diverse set of categories for citizen journalists from different fields. They can contribute news, features, interviews, pictures, news analysis, book and film reviews, etc.

National Chemical Laboratory, Pune has produced IndFauna, an electronic catalogue of Known Indian Fauna. Development of IndFauna, a winner in the e-environment category, has made it possible to access baseline data of all Indian faunal resources at a single click of a mouse. Further, by using multi-lingual engine this data can be accessed in six Indian languages viz. Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telgu, and Punjabi thus ensuring dissemination of knowledge in languages that people understand the best and covering nearly ¾ of the country.

StudentIndia.com is a dedicated information site for students based in Maharashtra. A winner in the e-Education category the object of the site is to meet the global requirement of students and partial educational awareness for parents to guide their child. The online services provided are free of cost.

NIC has developed and implemented Prisons Management System (PMS) application for Tihar Jail, Asia’s largest prison cell. PMS is a G-2-G and G-2-C eGovernance tool and a winner in the e-Governance category. It has created a transparent, simplified and efficient Prisoners’ Information Handling System for all Prisoners who are lodged in the Tihar Prisons and their visitors. Recording and tracking of all Prisoner movement activities within the Jail and out side Jail are being recorded using the PMS.

Surat and Gujarat based District Co-Operative Milk Online Integrated Computerized Systems (OICS) is a technology innovation covering Milk Procurement, Marketing, Sales Distribution, Cattle Feed Management, Materials Management, Maintenance Management, Document Management, Human Resource and Financial Accounting, which is pivoted around 8 major modules comprising on an approximate 1000 data entry forms, 120 query forms and 1500 reports. It is estimated that more than half million records are created each day in the computerized systems at different places. OICS is a winner in the e-Business category.

Of special significance of this year’s Manthan Award is taking the bold initiative in recognizing best community radio initiatives in the country. Special mention can be made of the village and rustic Raghav Mahto and his FM radio innovation in his Mansoorpur village in Vaishali district in Bihar. Raghav and his DJ friend Sambhu created and developed a simple FM radio tool that catered to the community needs in so many villages. The FM radio served for more than two years before it was shut down in March this year by official orders due to its illegal nature.

The appetite for knowing more of such other ICT and e-Content practices is enhanced further given the huge figure of 32 winners for this year Manthan Award. A reality check of the winners and special mention list reflects how the e-Content scenario is building up. The e-Content practices are essentially focusing on three areas: new innovations, new applications, new application and distribution network.

The Manthan-AIF Award is a first of its kind initiative in India to recognize the best practices in e-Content and Creativity. Launched in October 2004, by Digital Empowerment Foundation in partnership with World Summit Award, and the American India Foundation, the Manthan Award emphasizes the importance of e-Content & Creativity for and by the grassroots people and organisations. The Manthan Award 2005 recognized and awarded 27 initiatives out of 104 nominations received for 8 categories.

The mission behind Manthan-AIF Award is to create an information rich society where everyone, irrespective of caste, religion, race, region, gender etc., are empowered to create, receive, share and utilize information and knowledge for their economic, social, cultural and political upliftment and development.

The success of ICT does not stand on its own. Among several important components for any ICT intervention content formation and its utility assumes one of the core status. ICT delivery has to take into consideration the local needs of community, type and form of content for consumption and use, language of content and continuous value addition of content services and its delivery.

The Manthan-AIF Award is established to guide India through those best e-Contents from the country which stands out due to their excellence in carrying message and creating knowledge networks among local communities and the wider society. The e-Content practitioners are selected for their exemplary role and activities in empowering communities and groups through their ICT interventions in myriad ways.

The Manthan Award is an Indian initiative by Digital Empowerment Foundation, India as the national initiative of World Summit Award, to select and promote the best practices in e-Content and Creativity in India. It involves representatives from each state and union territory of India and visualizes the bridging of digital divide and narrowing of the content gap as its overall goal.

List of categories for Manthan-AIF Award 2006

Partners for The Manthan-AIF Award 2006

Board Members of Manthan-AIF Award

• Mr. Bibek Deb Roy, Secretary General, PHD Chamber of
Commerce & Industry
• Osama Manzar, Director and Founder, Digital Empowerment
Foundation
• Shankar Venkateswaran, Executive Director-India, American India Foundation, Madanmohan Rao
• Research Director, AMIC, Singapore

The Nomination List for the Manthan-AIF Award 2006

Percentage of Nomination Category wise

About DEF
Set up in December 2002 Digital Empowerment Foundation is a not-for- profit organisation catering to the Information Communication Technology needs for grassroots empowerment and enablement. Dedicated and committed to work across the country, DEF is concentrated on vital ICT areas of information, knowledge, research, investigation, activism, consultancy, outreach, and advocacy and so on

About AIF
The American India Foundation (AIF) is a leading international development organization charged with the mission of accelerating social and economic change in India. By mobilizing people and resources across the United States, AIF has raised over $30 million since its inception in 2001. AIF awards grants to education, livelihood, and public health projects in India – with emphases on elementary education, women’s empowerment, and HIV/AIDS, respectively.
For Further Information please contact:
Maria Rizvi, Digital Empowerment Foundation:
defindia@gmail.commanthanaward@gmail.com
Tel: +91-9818896456; 011-26532786/7

The Manthan-AIF Winners 2006
E-Learning

E-Localisation

E-Culture

E-News

E-Environment

E-Youth

E-Content

E-Inclusion & Livelihood

E-Health

E-Entertainment

E-Business

E-Governance

E-Education

E-Special Category: Community Broadcating