Eight young finalists paraded their talent and achievements in magic, rapier fencing, painting, equesterian show jumping, math wizadry and cyber crime detection, at the GS-EW Young Achievers Awards 2008 celebrated in Chennai. Summiya Yasmeen reports Any doubts that members of a specially constituted jury comprising education professionals, academics and media mavens may have entertained about the capabilities of generation next, were quickly dispelled when young finalists of the pan-India GlobalScholar-EducationWorld Young Achievers Awards 2008 rolled out their 15-minute presentations before a 100-strong audience, at a gala celebration event in Chennai on January 17. The venue was the chandeliered convention centre of the southern port city’s GRT Grand hotel, where the eight young finalists paraded their talent and achievements in magic, rapier fencing, painting, equestrian dressage and show jumping, math wizardry, cyber crime detection, to a bedazzled audience. After four of the eight finalists were adjudged winners in their categories, all the finalists short-listed from 960 nominations received from across the country, were celebrated and showered with gifts, trophies and cash prizes. A.V.K. Srikanth (arts and music category), A. Sai Mali (science, maths and technology), V. Nithin (sports) and Vineet Kumar (social work) were adjudged winners of the Global Scholar-EducationWorld Young Achievers Awards 2008. They were awarded Lenovo laptop computers, cheques of Rs.10,000 each and handsome, specially commissioned silver and acrylic trophies. Moreover the four runners up — Shruthi Sulappa, Shyam Srinivasaraghavan, Aly Asker Mirza, and Umesh B.N. — also received cash prizes of Rs.10,000 and trophies. Instituted by EducationWorld, India’s pioneer and sole education news and analysis magazine with an estimated readership of over 1 million countrywide, and sponsored by GlobalScholar Inc, a US-based education technology company with a global presence, these annual awards acknowledge, reward and celebrate India’s young achievers. EW’s young achievers awards were inaugurated in 2005 and for three consecutive years were presented in conjunction with the Bangalore-based ITES (information technology enabled services) and consultancy major Infosys Technologies Ltd. But following withdrawal of Infosys from sponsorship of these annual awards in 2007 (“not enough bang for the buck”), the Seattle-based GlobalScholar, which has established perhaps the world’s largest hi-tech online learning portal supported by a 125-strong tech support team in Chennai, stepped up to the plate. “GlobalScholar’s mission is to integrate and align all resources in education — parents, students, tutors, teachers, technology and content — to empower the world to learn. Therefore we whole-heartedly welcomed the opportunity to sponsor these national youth awards. We hope that the outstanding young achievers of 2008 will be an inspiration to all children and youth countrywide. Next year we plan to spread the nominations net wider to attract a larger number of nominations from rural India,” said Kalyan (‘Kal’) Raman, founder chief executive of GlobalScholar, speaking at the January 17 awards function. A young achiever himself, the 40-something Raman, a graduate of the Guindy College of Engineering, Chennai, traversed a spectacular career from a dirt-poor single parent family in rural Tamil Nadu to the Tata group in Mumbai and further to the US,…
