NASSCOM Foundation Announces Winners of Social Innovation Honors
IT News Online Staff
2009-02-16
NASSCOM Foundation (NF) has announced the winners of the Social Innovation Honors at the annual NASSCOM Leadership Forum. The Honors aim to showcase projects that demonstrate best practices through exemplary use of ICT in areas of social transformation.
Kamal Nath, Minister for Commerce and Industry, the Chief Guest for the event gave away the awards to the winners of the Social Innovation Honors.
Rufina Fernandes, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation, said, "For NF, a social innovation can be a product, a process, or a technology, as well as a principle, an idea, a piece of legislation, a social movement, an intervention, or some combination of them. This award is both an honor as well as a source of encouragement to organizations to continue to make a difference in the area of social development using ICT. The parameters on which the nominees were judged were the ICT Innovativeness, Social Development, cost/timelines and the sustainability."
The winners of the Social Innovation Honors:
1. Non-profit organization: ICT innovation for the community (non-profit)
- Kolkata Swasthya Sankalp, Kolkata: An automated and identity secured AMS-based solution for voluntary blood donation.
- Spastics Society of Karnataka, Bangalore: Introduced an initiative for people with disability called Center for Assistive Technology for Education and Life Skills Training. The Assistive Technology devices and software, enables people with special needs to carry out more activities and to make teaching more effective for all groups of children with disabilities.
2 a. Profit organization: ICT led business model innovation (for profit)
- SMSONE Media Services, Pune: A very innovative method of starting a Local SMS Community Newsletter to promote self employment in school and college dropouts. An unemployed youth collects 1000 mobile numbers of local residence and starts a SMS based newsletter to alert, update and inform them about local social happenings. It is a free service to citizens and yet the unemployed youth earns about Rs. 6,000 to Rs. 10,000 a month through promotional messages.
2 b. Profit organization: ICT innovation for the community (non-profit)
- T-Edge Solutions, Pune: aarogya.com aims to be India's leading health information portal. The site has sections, which cover almost all the medical specialties and give useful information on various diseases. To enhance its reach, the content is available in Indian languages too. It is the first health Web site to introduce online support groups. Addiction support and Epilepsy support are examples of some very active and vibrant communities.
The winners were adjudged, on the basis of multiple parameters set by Ernst & Young, by a grand jury comprising of Narayana Murthy, Rama Bijapurkar, Jaithirth Rao, Saurabh Srivasatava and Harish Mehta.
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