As in the past eleven years, a distinguished Panel debated on
and selected the Dataquest Awardees.
And following tradition, the previous year’s man of the
year, TCS managing director S Ramadorai, chaired the Panel, hosting it at his
headquarters in Mumbai on a sunny November day, three weeks ahead of the
Dataquest Awards on December 14.
| Selection Parameters for Nominations |
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The Panel included Dr DB Phatak, founder and dean of the
Kanwal Rekhi Institute at IIT Mumbai, i-flex Solutions’ India CEO Deepak
Ghaisas, Microsoft India managing director Neelam Dhawan, ICICI Bank CIO Pravir
Vohra; Ingram Micro managing director K Jaishankar, CSI President Lalit Sawhney
of Reliance Infocomm, and CyberMedia publisher Pradeep Gupta, facilitated by
Dataquest group chief editor Prasanto K Roy.
Nominations were sought from panelists, editors and industry
persons. The first round of deliberations on the nominations happened over
e-mail, followed by the Panel meet in Mumbai. The Panel was supported by
research from the Dataquest editorial team.
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The panelists: (from L-R) ICICI Bank CIO Pravir Vohra, CSI President Lalit Sawhney of Reliance Infocomm, Dr DB Phatak, founder and dean of the Kanwal Rekhi Institute at IIT Mumbai, TCS managing director S Ramadorai, CyberMedia publisher Pradeep Gupta, Ingram Micro managing director K Jaishankar, i-flex Solutions’ India CEO Deepak Ghaisas, and Microsoft India managing director Neelam Dhawan |
For a start, the Panel Chair proposed to rename the award
from Man of the Year to Person of the Year. This was unanimously supported by
the Panel.
An discussion and elimination process helped halve the list
of a dozen odd names. The next round dwelt on the achievements of each
contender: track record in recent years, contributions to the company and to
society.
After much discussion and deliberation, the panel unanimously named Nasscom
president Kiran Karnik IT Person of the Year 2005, Hinditron founder and
chairman Hemant Sonawala as Lifetime Achievement Awardee, and finally decided to
on a special Pathbreaker Award to R Chandrashekhar, joint secretary
(e-governance) with the Government of India.
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