Dear All,

The results of the award is below with full analysis...



Manthan-AIF Award 2006 set benchmarks in e-Content development and
applications



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, Pondicherry 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 portal 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, e-cards, 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, Telugu, 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



§ E-Business,

§ E-Culture,

§ E-Entertainment,

§ E-Science,

§ E-Health,

§ E-Government,

§ E-Learning,

§ E-Inclusion & Livelihood,

§ E-Education,

§ E-News,

§ E-Localisation

§ E-Environment

§ E-Youth

§ M-Content (Mobile content)




Partners for The Manthan-AIF Award 2006




§ American India Foundation, Principal Partner

§ The Government of Uttaranchal,

§ Department of IT, Government of India,

§ PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry

§ e-Gov World,

§ MetaLearn India,

§ DataQuest,

§ IRAM,

§ TFTP,

§ Brand Reporter

§ iCongo,

§ iTVidya,

§ Inomy Media Ltd.






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


States

No. of nominations


Andhra Pradesh

17


Assam

3


Chandigarh

1


Chhattisgarh

4


Delhi

31


Gujarat

9


Haryana

6


Himachal Pradesh

7


Jharkhand

10


Karnataka

11


Kerala

11


Maharashtra

52


Meghalaya

3


Nagaland

1


Orrisa

2


Rajasthan

1


Tamil Nadu

9


Uttar Pradesh

11


Uttaranchal

13


West Bengal

9


Punjab

1


Madhya Pradesh

2


Pondicherry

1



Percentage of Nomination Category wise


Category

No. of nomination

%age









E-Learning

23

11%


E-Business

13

6%


E-Culture

14

6%


E-Entertainment

11

5%


E-Science

5

2%


E-Inclusion & Livelihood

29

13%


E-Localisation

16

7%


E-Youth

5

2%


E-Education

22

10%


E-Health

14

6%


E-Environment

12

6%


E-Governance

38

19%


E-News

8

4%


M-Content

6

3%



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@...;
manthanaward@...

+91-9818896456

+91-11-26532787







The Manthan-AIF Winners 2006

E-Learning


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


Webel Mediatronics Limited

Information Technology based Education and Rehabilitation

West Bengal

Offline


VIIT, Vidyanagri MIDC Baramati

Multimedia content for class V to IX

Maharashtra

Web/ Internet


Vidya Online Charitable Trust

Vidya online A partnership for teachers children& edu.

Delhi

Broadband /online


Ideal Computer Education

Maharashtra state course in IT

Maharashtra

CD/DVD



E-Localisation


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


Vishva Kannada Softech

Kannada Logo

Karnataka

Offline


SRV Consultants

AZHAGI

Tamil Nadu

Offline


IIT Madras

Multingual Software

Tamil Nadu

Web/ Internet



E-Culture


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


Infogate Exporters Pvt. Ltd

Bhojpuria.com

Jharkhand

Broadband/Online


Macro Graphics Pvt Ltd

India Heritage

Delhi

Web/ Internet


iridiumInteractive Ltd

Anandautsav.com

Delhi

Broadband/online



E-News


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


Bizsoladvisors

Merinews

Haryana

Web/ Internet


Sarai FLOSS fellow

NewsRack

Karnataka

Web/ Internet



E-Environment


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


National Chemical Laboratory, Pune

IndFauna, Electronic Catalogue of Known Indian Fauna

Maharashtra

Online / Web Portal


AARANYAK

Aaranyak

Assam

Web/ Internet


Development Alternatives

Clean India

Delhi

Web/ Internet


Shivrai Technologies

Biodiesel - a green alternative

Maharashtra

CD/DVD



E-Youth


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


MouthShut.com (I) Pvt Ltd

Mouthshut.com

Maharashtra

Broadband/Online


shunya.in

Shunya.in

Haryana

Broadband/online



M-Content


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


ZMQ Software Systems

Freedom HIV/AIDS

Delhi

Mobile Content



E-Inclusion & Livelihood


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


Life Line to Business (LL2B)

Bio-metric tracking of payments under NREGA

Tamil Nadu

Offline


ITC LTD – IBD

E-Choupal Sanchalak

Maharashtra

Web/ Internet


Government of Assam

Asha - Hope for Farm Prosperity

Assam

Internet



E-Health


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


NAMI India

Mental Health Awareness and Stigma Eradication

Maharashtra

Offline, Web/ Internet, Email


Webel Electronic Communication

Deployment of Telemedicine for Healthcare in Rural Areas

West Bengal

Broadband


NIC, UP

SGPGI OPD On VC

Uttar Pradesh

Video conference



E-Entertainment


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


Walt Disney TV International (India)

Disney Channel Web sites

Maharashtra

Web/ Internet



E-Business


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


Indian AgriBusines Systems

Agriwatch

Delhi

Web/ Internet


Surat Districts Co-Operative Milk

Online Integrated Computerized Systems (OICS)

Gujarat

Offline



E-Governance


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


Orissa Government

Panchayatiraj department

Orissa

Web/ Internet


Government of Uttar Pradesh

Voice of people An e-ffort to empower citizen

Uttar Pradesh

Internet, Broadband, M-Content, Cross Media


Information Kerala Mission

Information Keral Mission

Kerala

Web/ Internet, CD/DVD, client-server


Municipal Corporation OF Hyderabad

Hyderabad First

Andhra Pradesh

web server


National Informatics Centre

Prison Management System

Delhi

Broadband/online



E-Education


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


Education Development Center

EDC Bangalore (Chukki Chinna Animal discovery Learning game)

Karnataka

CD/DVD


Learnet India Limited

Learnet (Experiments for class 8, 9 in Hindi)

Maharashtra

Offline/CD


StudentIndia.com

www.studentindia.com (Dedicated info site for students)

Maharashtra

Web/ Internet


Designmate (I) Pvt. Ltd.

www.designmate.com (Eureka.in)

Gujarat

LAN or WAN, Internet



Special Category: Community Broadcasting


Institute/Company

Title of the Product

State

Platform


VIIT,

FM Community Radio 90.4

Maharashtra

Radio


Equal Access

Community Radio Uttaranchal

Uttaranchal

local radio and Satellite broadcast


Namma Dhwani, VOICES/MYRADA

Namma Dharani in the Classroom

Karnataka

Audio video cable





Osama Manzar
Chairman: The Manthan Award -http://www.manthanaward.com
<http://www.manthanaward.com/>
Founder & Director - Digital Empowerment Foundation -
http://www.defindia.org <http://www.defindia.org/>
Jury Member: Dataquest eGov Champions Award 2006 -
<http://www.dqegovsummit.net/> http://www.dqegovsummit.net
Board of Director: World Summit Award, Austria - http://www.wsis-award.org
<http://www.wsis-award.org/>
Vice Chairperson: Global Alliance for Bridging Digital Divide -
http://www.gabdd.org <http://www.gabdd.org/>
Author: e-Content: Voices from the Ground - The Sequel 2.0 [2006] -
http://www.econtentworldwide.org <http://www.econtentworldwide.org/>

Email: osama@..., osama@...
TeleFax: + 91-11-26532787/6
Mobile: + 91-9810042862

Address:
12/17(Lower Basement)
Sarvapriya Vihar
New Delhi - 110 017
INDIA



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