Most Needed Information on the Manthan Awards South Asia

Manthan Awards South Asia: The Manthan Award is an annual award for South Asia given in recognition of exceptional digital content creation. Nominations are accepted by the public and multiple awards are given in many categories.

What is Manthan Award for South Asia and What is its Aim?

South Asia is a first-of-its-kind initiative to discover, recognize and honor the best use of ICT and digital tools for developmental purposes. The Award is less about technology and digital media but more about the right use of digital and technological tools to empower people.

The specific objective of the Award is to bring to the attention of all stakeholders such as governments, business and industry, and civil society organizations engaged in the development sector significant initiatives and valuable digital content that are successfully serving underserved communities especially in rural areas and urban slums.

Most of these success stories go unheralded in the mainstream media as these ICT interventions often operate in media-blind areas and sectors. Consequently, there is little knowledge-sharing among the progenitors of these initiatives which in turn hinders the emergence of an ecosystem that feeds on this knowledge and enables scaling up of these initiatives and coordination among them for a much larger impact.

The Manthan Award South Asia seeks to bridge this gap and create a platform that will not only highlight such ICTD initiatives but also help to create a network and database of such players that will enable all stakeholders to contribute in a way that will enhance the overall impact of such ICT interventions.

Each nomination will be assessed according to the following criteria:

1. • Award nominations submitted by individuals on behalf of public or private sector organizations, universities, or research and development institutions and non-government organizations will be considered.
   • Any nominated project has to complete at least 4 months on-ground. Start-ups can send their newly launched projects started after 1st July in our new category called Early Stage.
   • Award Nominations only from the South Asia region will be considered.
   • Award nominations from past year winners for the same project will not be considered.
   • Award nominations must provide clear and concrete information about your initiative, organization, the team involved.
   • Any single entry of nomination will not be considered under multiple categories.
   • Irrespective of the product/project language, all producer, and project information must be in English.
   • No direct entries from Bangladesh for the Manthan Awards South Asia will be entertained from this year. All entries from the country will only be allowed through the BRAC Manthan Digital Innovation Award (BMDIA), a collaborative initiative of BRAC and DEF.

NOMINATION GUIDELINES

• There are no charges applicable for nominating any project in the Manthan Award South Asia Nomination processes.
• There is no limitation on the submitted number of Nominations from any organization i.e. one can submit a number of nominations for different projects from one organization.
• Manthan Award South Asia, being applicable across the South Asia region invites Best Practitioners from all 8 South Asia countries to nominate for the best ICT innovations from their countries.
• The Manthan Awards are open to any of the following in the SOUTH ASIA region.
  1. Governments
  2. Individuals/Students
  3. Entrepreneurs
  4. Industry (Private Sector Companies/Corporate)
  5. Academician and Academic institutions
  6. NGOs/NPOs

• Winning Nominees of past years cannot submit the same project again at Manthan Award South Asia.
• The same project can be applied again if it was not a winning entry of any of the past 12 editions.
• Any partner to Manthan Award South Asia is eligible to apply for the Nomination process of any of their project as Jury is completely an independent process, irrespective of Manthan Award South Asia stakeholders.
• Any false information submitted about the project will immediately lead to permanent disqualification of the Nominee.
• Irrespective of the product/project language, all producer and project information must be in English only.
• Any nomination form received after the last date of registration will not be entertained.
• Any partially filled/not filled registration form will be rejected.
• The nomination form shall be submitted either online or offline (via email), however, we recommend you to choose the online method to take the advantage of update/editing filled information.
• Please note that either a PPT or a small video about the project is a mandatory requirement of the Nomination Form.
• Any applicant may edit/modify the details in the Nomination form till the last date of accepting the Nomination form using their credentials.
• The fields marked mandatory in nomination forms are necessary to be filled by the nominee.
• Any Nomination entry without Video or the PPT shall be considered as an incomplete entry & will not be counted for the final stage of Jury evaluation.
• The entry will not be considered if any nominee fails to submit the entire details of the nomination forms till the last date of Nomination.
• A Nominee shall consider the following documents to send with the completed nomination form-
  1. Presentation (covering information about the project they have applied for) [Mandatory]
  2. Logo of the project [Mandatory]
  3. Video on the project [Mandatory]
  4. Letter of Acknowledgement/Letter of appreciation [if any] by any recognized entity or any publications Online/Offline of the Nominated project being submitted.
  5. Brief profile of Producer[optional]
  6. Screenshots of website, images, real site photos
• All materials received during the judging process will remain confidential & will not be shared with any external entity without the consent of the concerned person(s).
• All the materials received [, Videos, Screenshots, Photos, etc.] during the nomination can be used by Manthan Award SOUTH ASIA Secretariat to produce any internal or winning project information/knowledge videos.

Evaluation Criteria:

• Content and services Quantify the quality of content and services delivery, the relevance of content, and its utility value.
• Impact, accessibility, and sustainability: Quantify and qualify the social impact and the commercial viability of the application. Accessibility of the system, technology, interface, and its inclusive nature for all kinds of users
• Functionality/navigation: Please highlight the user-friendliness and interactive nature of the application.
• USP and strategic value: Please focus on the uniqueness of the idea and the easiness of strategy replication.
• Benefit and utility: Please describe the real benefit to last-mile users.
• Overall Experience: The overall experience of the user about the project or service or content delivery

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Applicants can submit the applications using the .

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StudentsandScholarship Team.