Times News Network
Bangalore, Mar 30: India has scored another high, topping the number of entries at the Stockholm Challenge 2006 competition that honours innovative ways to use information and communication technology (ICT) to improve people's lives.
"We have a number of interesting projects from India this year. Seventy-three Indian projects signed up this year," the challenge spokesperson Johan De Geer told in an online interview.
With that, India surpassed the US as the country with most projects in 2006.
"We had 59 Indian projects in 2004, when India was the second most-represented country, 61 (again second) in 2002, 28 (seventh) in 2001 and 9 (18th) in 2000," said De Geer.
Currently, 16 Indian projects are in the final round. This award goes in six categories to innovative teams. The final winners will be feted in the Stockholm City Hall, venue of the Nobel Prize ceremonies, on May 11, 2006.
In the education category, shortlisted projects that impressed a wide-ranging global jury include an animated sign-language learning tool crafted in Rajkot, a Gurgaon-base online self-help community for visually disabled youth, and Giri Pragna, a project for tribal students from Khammam in Andhra Pradesh.
So was Gyan Vinimay, which tries to bring global expertise to Raipur. The Habitat Learning Centre from New Delhi and the Sharada ICT-catalyst for the literacy mission in Indore have also been selected.
Three Indian projects made it in the environment category: a building plan scrutiny and approval management system developed by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), a database on biodiversity of the Western Ghats at Bangalore's Indian Institute of Science, and a decision support system to build "secure highways" coming from Baramati in Maharashtra.
Nineteen Indian projects that promise to tone up public administration have also been shortlisted.
These range from New Delhi's Save the Girl Child campaign against sex-based abortions, the national 24-hour toll-free emergency Childline for children in distress, Pune's citizen facilitation centre, Computer-on-Wheels from Mahbubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh, eAwas government accommodation management system also from Delhi, eGram Suraj from Raipur; and HimBhoomi land records computerisation from Shimla.
Also shortlisted are HimRis (Himachal Registration Information System), Information Kerala Mission (IKM), telecom giant BSNL's integrated consumer initiative; and Sitapur's Lokvani "e-ffort to empower citizens through e-governance".
'Missing Children In India', a site to share information between citizens and various police units, from Nagpur is also shortlisted.
So are Parishkruti, an online public grievance redressal from Khammam, Pehal, citizen services from Shimla, Haryana Board of School Education's ICT initiatives, Rural e-Seva from West Godavari, and Nagpur's Total e-Government project.
New Delhi's Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, tkdl.res.in, an application for making an inventory of traditional knowledge, also figures among the entries.
India's 11 finalists for the economic development category include AGMARKNET that seeks to empower farmers with latest commodity prices, Akashganga to help timely collection of milk and offer better prices for producers in Anand, and the Computer Munshi or barefoot ICT entrepreneurs offering accounting and other services to self-help groups in rural India.
In the health category, ideas adjudged as innovative included an ICT-based AIDS campaign from Kurnool, and a Khammam-based e-immunisation project, which promises to help "save three million babies a year by tracking immunisation schedule for each baby using the information technology".
OpenMED@NIC, an Indian government initiative to build an open access archive for medical and allied science, has also been shortlisted.
In all, 149 teams from 53 countries have been invited to Stockholm.