KING-MAKERS
ALL: Members of the special panel of
judges that selected the IT Man of the Year, Lifetime Achievement and
Pathbreaker award winners for 2002. The panel meeting was held at Delhi’s
Taj Palace Hotel on December 3, 2002. (from left) CN Ram, Suresh Vaswani,
Abraham Thomas, Jerry Rao, Pradeep Gupta and Shyam Malhotra. Kiran Karnik,
Rajiv Nair and Satish Kaura were also on the panel, and joined in on
conference calls. Pramod Mahajan was chairman of the panel.
As in the last nine years, the winners of this year’s DQ Awards were se
lected by a distinguished panel, chaired this time around by Union minister for
IT and Telecom Pramod Mahajan. The panel included HDFC’s head of IT CN Ram,
Mphasis BFL founder and CEO Jerry Rao, Wipro Infotech president Suresh Vaswani,
IBM India CEO Abraham Thomas, Samtel chairman Satish Kaura, Microsoft India head
Rajiv Nair, Nasscom president Kiran Karnik, Cyber Media managing director
Pradeep Gupta and Cyber Publications’ editor-in-chief Shyam Malhotra.
The first round of deliberations on nominations for the DQ Awards was done
through e-mail. Next, the panel met at Hotel Taj Palace in New Delhi. At the Taj,
the final list was discussed, using supporting data provided by the DQ research
team. After the first elimination round, discussions were held, and five of the
total 14 names were shortlisted as contenders for the IT Man of the Year Award.
The next round of discussions dwelt on the achievements of each contender—their
track record in the last 12 months, contributions to the company stakeholders
and to society. This round saw three left in the fray. After much discussion and
deliberation, the panel unanimously named Sunil Bharti Mittal as IT Man of the
Year 2002.
Selection
Parameters for Nominations
The nominee should have been
associated with the IT industry for a reasonable period of time
The nominee should have been
the head of an organization or the leader of an organization
The nominee should have
contributed directly or indirectly to the general growth and development
of the Indian IT industry
The nominee should have
ensured beneficial growth of his or her organization
The nominee should be
regarded for the highest standards of ethics and responsible conduct
If the nominee has already
been awarded IT Man of the Year, the nominee cannot be considered for the
award for the next three years
For the Lifetime Achievement Award, the panel unanimously zeroed in on Sam
Pitroda. And the panel was in perfect sync while awarding the ‘Pathbreaker
Award’ to Raman Roy—for spearheading the IT-enabled services movement in the
country.
