Ashish Garg
Consultant at NIELIT, Ministry of Electronics & IT
Every year, Digital Empowerment Foundation’s awards bring some extraordinary entries which have used their innovations to empower communities, create an equitable & inclusive society and alleviate human suffering. These awards effectively represent our world today along with its various dichotomies, such as urban and rural, the millennial and people who have remained outside the fringes of development.
The innovative ways in which digital and mobile solutions have been deployed in healthcare, especially pre-natal and neo-natal, will pave the way for easy and affordable healthcare facilities even in remote areas. Over the years that I have been connected with DEF, I have always been inspired with their approach towards providing digital solutions to rural India with a vision towards a digitally inclusive society. I really liked the newest innovations, the brilliance in using of mobile as a device for communication, increased access to information and government services brought to the world through their awards. I like how the innovations who come into the forefront break down the language barrier, most apps today are multi-lingual and multi-dimensional, giving technology a unique applicability and customisation that was missing in the earlier innovations.
I congratulate all the winners of SM4E and mBillionth of 2018 which do a great job of collating new ideas, but that is not all they do. They quite literally are documenting the history of the future!