Skoch Challenger Awards, instituted in 2003, salute people, projects and institutions that went the extra mile to make India a better nation. Skoch Challenger Awards – the highest independently instituted civilian honours – have been conferred, the mighty and the ordinary have shared this platform for their extraordinary achievements in contributing to the society.
The Skoch Challenger Awards cover the best of efforts in the area of digital, financial and social inclusion. They encompass the best of governance, look at excellence in academics, change management, inclusive growth, citizen services delivery, capacity building, empowerment and other such softer issues that get normally lost in the glamour and the glitz of industry sponsored or advertising focused jamborees.
The Skoch Challenger Awards are coveted for their independence, primary research and a distinguished jury based approach. The Skoch Challenger Awards are distinctive for its approach of selection of awardees, which is not based on nomination but on discovery. Additionally, the College of Skoch Lifetime Achievers are regularly consulted for expert identification, inputs and qualification of a project, person or institution to be considered for the Award. Some of the Skoch Lifetime Achievement Awardees include, Dr C Rangarajan, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister; Dr Vijay Kelkar, Former Chairman, Thirteenth Finance Commission; Mr Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations; Mr C B Bhave, Chairman, SEBI; and, Dr R H Patil, Chairman, Clearing Corporation of India Limited. Further, documentary videos are produced after detailed research, for all the Lifetime Achievement Awardees and most of the projects and institutions. These are then shared with the domain experts and larger audience groups of practitioners ahead of the Awards and are put in public domain for larger dissemination once the Award is conferred. This has resulted in an unparalled video documentation of contemporary Indian history of best practices and has contributed to forming one of the largest online Knowledge Repositories hosted by Skoch.
No industry or government support or endorsement is either expected, accepted or solicited for the Skoch Challenger Awards and they remain independently instituted and conferred as a third party perspective. The Roll of Honour of the Skoch Challenger Awards over the years is a testimony to this. The Skoch Challenger Awards not only acknowledge exceptional achievers but also spurs inspirational guidance and motivational leadership.
Skoch Challenger Awards 2010 recognizes the best practices in the following categories:
Lifetime
Achievement
Vijay Kelkar
Urban
Development
M Ramachandran,
Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development
Governance
Sunil Mitra, Secretary, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance
National
Significance
Kiran Karnik
Financial
Inclusion
J M Garg, CMD,
Corporation Bank
Infrastructure
Hari Sankaran,
Managing Director & CEO, IL&FS
Economics
Shankar Acharya, Member Board of Governors & Honorary Professor, ICRIER
Banking
M V Nair, CMD,
Union Bank
Disaster
Management
N V C Menon,
Hon'ble Member, NDMA
Security
Raghu Raman, Secretary & CEO, NATGRID
Education
Ravi Venkatesan,
Chairman, Microsoft Corporation (India)
Business Model
S Sridhar, CMD, Central Bank
Municipality
Municipal Corporation
of Greater Mumbai
Power Sector
West Bengal
Research
National Institute of
Public Finance and Policy
Inclusion
NABARD
Bank
Bank of Baroda
Grassroots
BASIX
Livelihood
Linkage
Punjab National Bank - Bulandshahr
Project
Public-Private-Partnership
RIDCOR
e-Governance
NIC - Transport
Project
Skoch Challenger Awards 2009
The
Skoch Challenger Awards were conferred at the culmination of the 19th
Skoch Summit, which sought to highlight the criticality of dovetailing
security and emergency responses into the economic and development
growth scenarios. The Skoch Challenger Awards are coveted for their
independence, primary research and a distinguished jury based approach.
No industry or government support or endorsement is accepted or
expected for the Skoch Challenger Awards and they remain independently
instituted and conferred as a third party perspective.
The Skoch
Challenger Lifetime Achievement Award for 2009 was conferred on Sam
Pitroda for ushering in the telecom and IT revolution in India. The
telecom czar received the award during a glittering function at New
Delhi amidst applause and standing ovation by a house packed with over
450 people. Pitroda was instrumental in helping kick-start software
exports from India and providing economies of scale to computer
manufacturing in India. Through his mantra of indigenous manufacturing,
shared access, rural telephony and using the power of young talent, he
made the rural telephone exchange and the Public Call Office (PCO) at
every nook and corner of India happen.
Skoch Challenger Awards 2009