Deadline: 30-Sep-20
The Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) spun off from its highly successful Manthan Awards a separate award – the mBillionth Award South Asia – only for recognizing excellence in mobile innovations for development. This year, rising to the challenge of the Covid-19 healthcare crisis, the 11th edition of the mBillionth Award South Asia will be held online.
The industry-driven mBillionth Awards recognizes South Asia as a key hub of the world’s mobile and telecom market in terms of penetration and innovation. Though the region suffers from a significant digital divide, there is no dearth of technical pioneers who are using the platform as a tool for catalyzing change. The platform honors the media that is surpassing all other mediums of communication in the region: Television, radio, Internet, newspapers, magazines, and landlines.
This first-of-its-kind initiative in the region, mBillionth Awards recognize and felicitate innovations and excellence in the development and use of mobile applications as well as best practices in the delivery of mobile content and services, across nine South Asian countries – Afghanistan | Bangladesh | Bhutan | India | Maldives | Myanmar | Nepal | Pakistan | Sri Lanka.
The Awards accept nominations under 9 core categories. This year, keeping in mind the Covid-19 crisis, they have introduced a new category for 2020 – Innovation@Covid-19
- Innovation@Covid-19
- Government & Citizen Engagement
- Health & Well Being
- Learning & Education
- Agriculture & Environment
- Culture & Tourism
- Media & Entertainment
- Business & Commerce
- Inclusion & Empowerment
- Smart Settlements & Urbanisation
Objectives
To recognize and honor excellence in mobile communications across South Asia:
- To acknowledge innovations and creativity in mobile and telecom solutions
- To provide a platform for people-oriented innovations in the telecom industry
- To provide a wider forum for strategic networking, alliances, and partnership building
- To provide a South Asia Congress for exchanging ideas, strengthening policies, and mobile advocacy
- To facilitate building a South Asia network for campaign and advocacy in mobile for mass empowerment and inclusive growth
Eligibility Criteria
- mBillionth Awards nominations should be for projects that have been on the ground for at least 6 months. Exceptions only for those initiatives applying under the Innovation@Covid-19 category.
- The same project will not be considered under multiple categories. One product can only be submitted for one category.
- In case of multiple project submissions by the same organization/company/team, each product requires a separate registration under a separate category.
- Past year’s winners cannot nominate their winning project once again.
- Irrespective of the product/project language, all producer and project information must be submitted in English.
- Any incomplete or unfinished registration form will be rejected.
- The mBillionth Awards are open to the following from any SAARC country:
- Governments
- NGOs
- Industries (Pvt sector companies)
- Telecom Innovators
- App Developers
- Individual/Students
- Academician and Academic Institutions
- Entrepreneurs.
For more information, visit http://mbillionth.in/
