The mBillionth Award South Asia is presented each year since 2010 for socially valuable innovations in mobile communications in South Asia. The scheme is run by the Digital Empowerment Foundation, an Indian NGO seeking to improve access to and usage of digital communications.
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Aims
The stated mission of the mBillionth Awards is "to recognise and honor excellence in mobile communications across South Asia... recognising and felicitating mobile innovations, applications and content services delivery." Founded in 2010, the awards are directed towards those innovations in mobile communications that make for widespread adoption of the technology, promising empowerment and social gain. The scheme seeks further to facilitate networking among inventors and developers in this field.
Eligibility
The award is open to governments, individuals, private sector companies, academic institutions, and NGOs in any of the eight SAARC countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Entry is by self-nomination.
Selection process
Nominations for the award are pre-filtered and the final selection is carried out by a Grand Jury. In 2016 the number of nominations received was 348; of these 60 were considered by the Grand Jury of 15 members, who selected 25 winners and 6 Special Mentions.
Categories
In the first year of the awards, 2010, the categories were:
Winners
Some of the winners of the mBillionth award have been as follows.