Sunday, July 05, 2009

Entries invited for 2009 India Press Photo awards


The Ramnath Goenka Memorial Foundation, named after the founder of the Indian Express group, is inviting entries for the 2009 India Press Photo awards for excellence in photo journalism.

There are five prizes on offer. The picture of the year will get Rs 1.5 lakh, and the best pictures for spot news, general news, sports, and arts and entertainment, will respectively receive Rs 1 lakh each.

The last date for submission of entries is 31 August 2009.

More details on www.expressindia.com/ippa

Email: indiapressphoto@expressindia.com

Snailmail: Ramnath Goenka Memorial Foundation, Express Building, 9 & 10, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi – 110002

Check out last year's winner: 2008 India press photo award winning picture

Hat Tip: Pragnya.

Manthan Awards nominations open

Manthan Award is a first of its kind initiative in India to recognize the best practices in e-Content and Creativity. It was launched on 10th October '2004, by Digital Empowerment Foundation in partnership with World Summit Award and American India Foundation.

Now, after four immensely successful years of holding it within India, the organisers have felt that it's about time it is expanded a bit and its areas of operation now is all of SAARC countries namely India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan & Afghanistan.

Self Nomination: A person or an organisation can apply himself/herself or the organisation represented.

The Forms for nomination can be downloaded from this website or obtained from our office or requested by post. The forms can be filed online. Or the forms, complete in all respects, could be sent by post or hand delivered at the above address. Photocopies of forms can also be used.

Last date - July 31 2009

Details at: http://www.manthanaward.org

Contact:
Manthan Award South Asia 2009 Secretariat
44, IIIrd Floor, Kalu Sarai,
Near IIT Gate Flyover, New Delhi-110016, India
Tel/Fax: +91-11-26532786 / 26532787
Email: manthanaward@defindia.net / manthanaward@gmail.com

GE Edison Challenge 2009

The Edison Challenge is to design an innovative technological solution to the energy requirements of a community of moderate or medium size. The energy requirements for households and institutions in rural or semi-urban communities are diverse - electrical, thermal, mechanical, etc. There are also several natural and other resources that are available as potential sources of energy. These may be underutilized or, at times, overexploited. The crucial need is for solutions that demonstrate their practical feasibility and ability to scale up to the required levels.

Launch - 29 Jun 2009
Last date for entries - 31 Aug 2009
Announcement of Top 20 - 15 Sep 2009
Finals at JFWTC - 5-6 November 2009

More details at http://www.ge.com/jfwtc/edisonchallenge/challenge.html

Badlaav 2009 – Indian Youth Summit on Climate Change

Badlaav 2009: Be the Change! is a week-long climate camp to be held in the nation’s capital, Delhi. We aim to have hundreds of young people come from across the country to:
- Be trained on skills of organizing, running projects, lobbying, direct action, presentations, and facilitation.
- Participate in eye opening discussions of equity, theories of change, water, energy, agriculture etc.
- To enjoy concerts, cultural performances, film festivals, green jobs fair and many other opportunities to have fun and learn!

When?
July 18th to July 24th

Who?
Being organised by Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) for you and hundreds of youth from across India.

Where?
Lodhi Institutional Area, Delhi

Why?
Have you ever looked at the dirty dying rivers, floods, breathed in the pollution, see people on the streets living with diseases and in poverty, and just wondered – how can we change this? Do we wish to witness incidences like Cyclone Aila in West Bangal more frequently? Are we ready to handle the increased number of climate refugees? Our basic requirement like food and shelter is at risk. Have you ever thought that our politicians are corrupt, our businesses are corrupt, our system is corrupt and that it is too hard to make a change? Have you ever thought why doesn’t anyone care about our country, our planet, our future?
Think again.

At the end of this year in Copenhagen an international treaty will be signed, committing the world to trying to stop dangerous climate change at the UN climate negotiations. However a lot of the world holds little hope that it will be a good treaty that will protect our future. The interest of the Indian people and majority of the developing world are not being listened to.

What do we do? Do we sit back and let the countries of the world sign away our future stability?
No. We don’t. We take action.

Contact:

Anu Radha Verma - anuradha@iycn.in - +91 989 108 4960
Anurag Maloo - anu.maloo.it@gmail.com - +91 971 806 6013
Tejeswar Parida - tejeswarparida@gmail.com - +91 999 997 4473
Snigdha Kar - karsnigdha25@gmail.com - +91 981 874 5466

If you believe you can fly ..

Wanted to share this nice video on innovation:


[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALyQL0rQtMY]

nVision calling for innovative ideas from India

nVisiOn is unlike any other contest conducted for entrepreneurial promotion. nVisiOn offers an opportunity for participants to express their ideas without a business proposition associated with them. The concept behind the contest is to encourage technologies that will impact the future and might not make much business sense now.

The key objective of this contest is to celebrate the achievements and develop the potential of young creative entrepreneurs across India.

Some examples of their inventions are:
• Energy-saving inventions such as the manually powered lamps: It does not include any batteries, all one needs is to rotate the ball to generate light.
• A folding bike - This is convenient to carry and one may easily fold and park the bicycle in the house

The idea may be as simple as creating a ‘nozzle embedded bottle cap’ for spill-free, easy pouring to writing a software that translates languages.We will accept innovative ideas in any field as long as the idea can be later expressed in the form of a mechanical or operational product.

WIN PRIZES WORTH Rs. 1 Lakh!

Simply mail in your innovative ideas at entries@nvision.com

For more information, visit http://www.nvision.in.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Schwab Foundation - Social Entrepreneur of the Year Competition - India 2009 applications open

Do you consider yourself a social entrepreneur?

Do you believe you know someone who is a social entrepreneur?

Then this message is for you.

The Search and Selection process for the Social Entrepreneur of the Year in India was established to recognize outstanding social entrepreneurs in this country - an initiative of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.

Read the Criteria for Selection, and if you believe you qualify as a candidate, please APPLY BY - 31 July 2009.

If you think you know someone who should be a candidate, forward these details to him or her. Contact Schwab Foundation for any queries: india@schwabfound.org

APPLY HERE - http://www.schwabfoundseoy.org

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Applications are also open for other countries:
- Switzerland 2009 (Round 1) - Applications Close on 06 July 2009
- France 2009 (Round 1) - Applications Close on 31 August 2009
- Latin America 2010 (Round 1) - Applications Close on 15 February 2010
- Germany 2009 (Round 1) - Applications Close on 31 July 2009

Details here - http://www.schwabfoundseoy.org/

The Gift of Water - Film By Mastek Foundation

A great example of how small actions of organizations can bring about a big change in this world. These kind of initiatives not only by benefit others, but also help the organizations by building strong leaders and change-makers within their workforce.

Infact, I feel the employees should ask their organization heads and CSR groups to provide them with this experience.


(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCqbrEyScW0)

Social Media Tools for Government

A simple yet great example of how governments can use social media to leverage and reach out to the masses.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Vivek-Kundra-Takes-Your-Questions/
Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra held a live chat yesterday to answer your questions from Facebook and WhiteHouse.gov on technology, information, and transparancy.

Even if you missed out the live chat, they recorded the live video and posted it to their blog so that anyone can watch it later. Wonderful.


(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HZ-BESVVck)


Talking about governments and democracy, don't forget to check out APPS FOR DEMOCRACY (http://www.appsfordemocracy.org) - 47 web, iPhone and Facebook applications built by people to engage the citizens and government in better solving the problems within the community.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Department of Road Traffic in India is funding NGOs

Any voluntary organisation registered under the Registration of Societies Act, 1860 or under Societies Registration Act of concerned State or UT /autonomous body/educational institution engaged in research activity or field programmes relating to Road Safety for a period of at least two years, can apply for grant-in-aid for undertaking road safety activities.

Schemes/programmes eligible for assistance :- An illustrative list of activities is as under:-
i) Raising road safety consciousness among the road users;
ii) Publicity Campaigns on road safety;
iii) Providing training to drivers and medical aid to the victims of road accidents;
iv) Organising training programmes for special target groups like drivers of heavy vehicles/goods vehicles, etc;
v) Research and Development of traffic control methods, design of vehicles and roads, etc;
vi) Sponsoring / financing of publication of popular literature on road safety;
vii) Organising quiz competition, Essay competition, painting competition, for school/college students
viii) Cultural activities promoting road safety such as puppet shows, plays etc.
ix) Organsising seminars in subjects like Don't over-speed, Don't drink & Drive , follow lane discipline, be alert on road.
(This list is illustrative and an individual organisation is free to submit suitable proposals keeping in view the essential objective of improving Road Safety in India).

For more Details, check here - http://morth.nic.in/writereaddata/sublinkimages/guidelines_for_RoadSafetyProgrammes8706143.htm