CyberMedia ICT Awards - Celebrating Success

The CyberMedia ICT Business Awards-dubbed as the “The Oscars of Indian ICT’ is all about celebrating the winners and achievers of the Indian ICT industry. The 23^rd ICT Awards function held on January 28^th at Delhi saw the influential players in the IT industry, government officials and consultants congregating in a grand function.

Over the year, Dataquest through various surveys such as the Customer Confidence Survey 2015 , DQ Top 20  Survey and V&D 100 Survey captured the pulse of the Indian ICT industry and the ICT Awards are a manifestation of these findings.

Let’s look at the awards and the categories:

The Jury Awards:

DQ Path Breaker Award: JAN DHAN YOJANA:

The Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana or the  (Prime Minister’s People Money Scheme) (PMJDY) is a very unique initiative that fosters financial inclusion. It ensures that access to a range of financial services  such as banking, savings and deposit accounts, remittance, credit,Insurance and pension in an affordable manner. The campaign was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi  in August of 2015. The scheme is being run by Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance. The scheme saw a record breaking 1.5 mn bank accounts opened on the inauguration day and in the bargain created a Guinness World Record for “ THE MOST BANK ACCOUNTS OPENED IN A WEEK”

Clearly the Jan Dhan Yojana has unfolded a new premise in the financial inclusion space and created a new benchmark. As of 13 January 2016, over 20 crore Bank Accounts were opened under this scheme taking the total deposits to US $ 4.5 bn or Rs 301 billion.

IT Person of the Year:

Rahul Sharma, Co-founder, Micromax Informatics Limited, Founder, YU Televentures

Operating in the most competitive mobile handset space dominated by goliath’s like Samsung and Apple, this company has carved an edge and has rose to prominence beating all odds. When Rahul Sharma co-founded Micromax along with three of his friends - Vikas Jain, Sumeet Arora and Rajesh Aggarwal in 2000 as a software company little did they realise they will disrupt the  mobility landscape. Along with software the company also distributed Nokia phones, but in 2008 Sharma’s passion for making cheap mobile handsets with appealing form factors with a long lasting battery life became a reality. Since then it’s no turning back - the company stormed the handset charts with models that appealed to the masses, yet affordable. With revenues in excess of 1.2bn the company created a huge buzz in the industry by signing Hugh Jackman as their brand ambassador.

Clearly Under Rahul’s leadership, Micromax’s innovative product and marketing strategy has revolutionized the smartphone market in India. He has led the revolution of the democratization of technology for the masses by removing barriers for large scale adoption.

Fortune Magazine listed Sharma in their list of the most influential young people in business under 40 years of age.

Lifetime Achievement: Nandan Nilekani- Indian entrepreneur, bureaucrat and politician.

Nandan Nilekani is digital weaver  par excellence. A change agent in every right and the UIDAI project he drove was dubbed as the biggest social project on earth.

Nilekani is a member of the board of governors of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and the president of NCAER (the premier independent applied economics research institute in India) He also serves in  several advisory boards, including those of the World Economic Forum.  Nilekani has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote his book Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation  and spoke at a TED conference   in 2009 on his ideas for India’s future.

Nandan Nilekani and his entrepreneur wife Rohini are ranked 69th on Forbes’ list of richest Indians with an estimated wealth of $1.58 billion but they are not just wealth creators but great philanthropists as well. According to Hurun India Philanthropy List 2015, Nandan Nilekani and his wife Rohini Nilekani donated Rs.2,404 crore, primarily towards the cause of urban governance, public policy and education, making them the second most generous.

Their latest initiative: EkStep, an ambitious plan to teach India’s poor, school-age children math and language skills through technology tools.

From a CEO to Bureaucrat to Politician to Philanthropist - Nilekani has touched the lives of many Indians and this award is  testimony for his ever growing achievements.

Industry Awards: Dataquest

Industry Awards: Voice & Data

Panel discussion on Skill Development

One of the key highlights of the awards function was the panel discussion on skill development moderated by CyberMedia CMD Pradeep Gupta. The panel comprised of eminent personalities like  Subramaniam Ramadorai, adviser to the Prime Minister of India in the national council on skill development, Government of India Vijay Sethi, Chief Information Officer and Head Corporate Social Responsibility at Hero MotoCorp and Ahhilesh Tuteja, Partner, KPMG.

The panel deliberated on the multi-pronged challenges on the road to skill development and took at some of the realities at ground zero. Issues like a comprehensive skill development strategy based on comprehensive assessment methodologies were discussed in detail.

In all the 23^rd CyberMedia ICT awards acted as a benchmark for Indian ICT’s performance over the year and how unique go to market strategies of key vendors have propelled them to take on the top spots.

Join us in congratulating all the Award winners.