The Indian Blogger Awards – Jury Announced!

Hello Everyone!

The Indian Blogger Awards has been raging with over 3500 nominations across 117 categories. We thank everyone for their nominations and we hope that you are enjoying the process.

Trying to pick one among many blogs as a winner is a challenge. The jury for the first edition of the Indian Blogger Awards did a tremendous job in picking worthy winners.

We thought you might like to know the jury of the Indian Blogger awards of 2017 a little better. Below are some of our jury members and descriptions about them. Do leave us a comment if you find a person you know or if you just want to give us a shout 🙂

Anand D Jeyasekharan

Dr Jeyasekharan obtained his undergraduate medical degree from Christian Medical College Vellore, India in 2003. He then received a Gates Cambridge Scholarship towards a PhD in Oncology (2008) at the University of Cambridge UK under the mentorship of Prof. Ashok Venkitaraman FMedSci. Following a post-doctoral fellowship in Cambridge as a Wolfson Junior Research Fellow, he joined the National University Hospital Singapore in 2010 to complete his clinical training in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. Dr. Jeyasekharan’s clinical interest is in aggressive B-cell lymphomas, and he leads the research program for the NUHS lymphoma team. He holds a joint appointment at the Cancer Science Institute, where he has run a basic science laboratory since 2013. His laboratory focuses on understanding defects in DNA repair in tumours, and the development of biomarkers of these pathways for clinical use. Dr. Jeyasekharan holds multiple internal and nationally funded grants to support his research, and is also actively involved in the Clinician-Scientist Unit at the NUH, where he co-administers the National University Hospital Clinician-Scientist Program for Residents (NCSP-R).

Tanvi Shah

Tanvi Shah is an award-winning Recording Artist/ Songwriter and one of the most sought after voices in the music industry today.

Tanvi shot to fame when she won the prestigious Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Motion Picture or Other Visual Media for her Spanish lyrics for the song “Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire (2010), an award she shared with maestro A.R. Rahman and lyricist Gulzar. She is the first Indian woman to have won this coveted award. She also shares the World Soundtrack Award (2009) with Rahman and Gulzar besides receiving the BMI Award in 2009 in London for the same track.

While she has done her fair share of playback singing for the film industry in India, she is an international star. This versatile singer’s appeal lies in the fact that she can sing in several different languages, which has won her fans across the world.

Tanvi sings in Spanish, Portuguese, Afro-Cuban, Arabic besides Hindi, Tamil and Telugu and experiments with a wide range of music with her band.

Her adaptability has been proven in her collaborative work with international music producers such as Jeremy Hawkins (USA), Che Pope (USA), David Batteau (USA), and DJ Salah of Germany.

Tanvi has walked the green carpet at the Latin Grammy in 2011 , and has shared the stage with Lebohang Morake, South African singer, and composer, famous for arranging and performing the music for The Lion King movies and stage productions. She has also performed at the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo.

Anupriya Subbian & Tahaer Zoyab

Anupriya Subbian & Tahaer Zoyab are co-founders and principal designers at Triple O Studio – a multi-disciplinary design house. Inspired by the impact and positive energy of good design, Triple O Studio was set up in 2010, with prior work experience in Chennai, Coimbatore, Bangalore and New York city. Triple O is merely a methodology and acknowledgement of our individual responsibility in achieving massive change through better design.

Be the difference we wanted to see.

Our collaborative platform runs a core team focusing on Architecture, Products, Interior and furniture design and larger scale planning and Urban design. Currently our studio is engaged with the national government as smart-city urban design consultants, city-scale projects including the longest foot-over bridge in the city, architecture -ranging from cinema complexes to low-cost housing, and hospitality and residential interiors.

With an eye on innovation, we at Triple O Studio, place an emphasis on green and sustainable design solutions.

Bibek Debroy

Bibek Debroy is an economist and was educated in Ramakrishna Mission School, Narendrapur; Presidency College, Kolkata; Delhi School of Economics and Trinity College, Cambridge. Presently, he is Member, NITI Aayog, Government of India.  He has worked in Presidency College, Kolkata (1979-83), Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune (1983-87); Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi (1987-93); as the Director of a Ministry of Finance/UNDP project on legal reforms (1993-98); Department of Economic Affairs (1994-95); National Council of Applied Economic Research (1995-96); Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (1997-2005); PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (2005-06); and Centre for Policy Research (2007-2015).  He has authored/edited several books, papers and popular articles and has also been a Consulting/ Contributing Editor with several newspapers.

Gul Panag

Gul is an actor and an entrepreneur who is one of India’s most powerful opinion makers and thought leaders. She is a frontline advocate and activist who regularly engages and facilitates dialogue and debate on critical issues of gender equality and justice, environment issues, fundamental rights, secularism, corruption and political accountability. Gul holds a Masters degree in Political Science. Her social and political activism has had her being recognized as one of the most influential voices on social media and a youth icon. She is an entrepreneur, adventurer, fitness icon and is also into bikes, cars, planes, books, horses and guns.

Jayant Sriram

Jayant Sriram is a Senior Assistant Editor with The Hindu in Mumbai. He has previously worked with India Today, Indian Express and The New Indian Express, reporting on a range of subjects from national politics, policy, law, development and agrarian issues. He is an alumnus of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and The School of Oriental and African Studies, London.

Judy Balan

Judy Balan is the author of Sophie Says and the best-selling Two Fates: The Story of my Divorce. As a writer, she loves dabbling in different mediums – blogs, plays, columns, novels, movies, sitcoms, you name it – she’s either done it or reading books about it, while she waits for the opportunity to present itself. She is also a single-parent to 7 year old Kiara and while she doesn’t always get the juggling right, she believes in approaching life as one, big, fascinating laboratory with exciting experiments just waiting to happen. You may find all her theories based on said experiments, on her blog – Woman and a Quarter.

K.M.Ayappa

Ayappa KM is writer and filmmaker from Mumbai. He is know for his unusual casting and oddball humour. His work has won numerous national and international awards, including a Cannes Lion. He is currently co-founder of Earlymanfilm.com.

Kamla Ravikumar

Kamla Ravikumar was born and raised in Bombay (Mumbai). Her educational experiences are in art and interior design. She has designed and decorated residential and commercial spaces in Chennai for the last fifteen years.

Kamla’s love for colour, fascination with the properties of glass and a passion for learning led her to discover a new craft.She started making Tiffany lamps,Mirrors,stained glass panels and doorway arches which are housed in residences in Chennai and New Delhi.

Art enthusiasts in Chennai are familiar with Kamla’s creativity. She has had several exhibitions of her paintings and sculpture. Many of her works are with several private collectors.

She also manages Studio 41, where she teaches art and crafts to women, children and conducts preparatory workshops for students planning to pursue undergraduate studies in art or visual communication,Architecture Entrance (NATA), and NID entrance. She encourages children by holding an exhibition of their works annually.

At Studio 41 she teaches drawing, painting, pottery, Tanjore glass painting,  stained glass painting, fabric painting, and folk art.Visit her website:www.studio41art.com, for more info about her classes.

Karun Chandhok

Karun Chandhok is part of a very exclusive club of only two Indian Formula 1 drivers. A multiple race winner and podium finisher in GP2, Karun was a test driver for the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team in 2007 and 2008, before going on to race in Formula 1 for Hispania Racing and Team Lotus in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

Since 2012, he has been competing in Sportscars, becoming the only Indian to ever compete in the iconic Le Mans 24 hour race, finishing in the top 6 in class at Le Mans in 2012, 2013 and 2015. Karun also joined Mahindra Racing for the all new Formula E series, a historic new championship for Electric race cars for the inaugural season in 2014-2015.

Karun was born into a motor racing family where his father, grandfather and even grandmother used to race! After winning the Indian National Championship on debut in 2000, he won the Formula Asia Championship in 2001 before moving to England where he was a front-runner in Formula 3. Karun went back to Asia and won the Asian Renault V6 series in 2006, which served as a launch pad up to GP2 and then Formula 1.

In recent times, Karun has also experienced historic racing competing at the Goodwood Revival on several occasions. He is also a regular driver and consultant for the Williams Formula 1 team’s heritage business.

A resident of the UK, Karun has built up quite a name for himself as a commentator and analyst for motorsport, working with 5 different global Formula 1 broadcasters. He was a main commentator for Star Sports in Asia as well as BBC Radio 5 Live in the UK for a number of years. More recently he worked with Sky Sports F1 in the UK and BeIN Sports in Qatar and in 2016 joined the team at Channel 4 in the UK for their Formula 1 broadcast. He is a regular columnist for the world’s leading motorsport magazines, Autosport and Motorsport and has also worked with Jeremy Clarkson for his end of year DVD ‘Powered up’, on ‘Fifth Gear’, with National Geographic and a host of Indian news channels.

In a consultancy role, Karun has worked closely with Bernie Ecclestone and Formula 1 Management as well as the Jaypee Group on the Indian Grand Prix. He also worked with Nissan on managing the GT Academy program in India, with the Tata Group on the T1 Truck Racing Series, with JK Tyre on a variety of programs, with Formula E Holdings and the Mahindra Group on the initial entry of the team to the series. He currently manages Arjun and Kush Maini racing in GP3 and F4 respectively and negotiated an agreement for Arjun to be an development driver with the Haas F1 team. He is also a consultant to Driven International, a circuit design company looking into new circuit designs as well as upgrade of current circuits.

In 2013, Karun became a member of the first ever FIA Driver’s Commission and continues to represent the rights and views of driver’s from across the world.

He also conducts an annual charity event, the “Karun’s Karting Carnival” in the summer in the UK to raise funds for the education of underprivileged children in India through his family run Vishnu Devananda Charitable Trust.

Kimberly Duran

In 2010, Kimberly Duran started her blog Swoon Worthy to catalogue the work being done to her 100+ year old Edwardian semi in Manchester, England. Since then, her blog has grown to one of the UK’s leading interior design blogs, winning two prestigious awards including the Bloggers’ Choice Award in the Amara Interior Blog Awards 2016 and Most Creative DIY Project in 2015 Callwey Best of Interior Blog Awards as well as being named one of the Best Interior Design Blogs by The Telegraph, Vuelio, Hello! Magazine and The Daily Mail. Her home and her unique eclectic boho glam style have been featured in countless magazines and interior design books both in the UK and abroad. Swoon Worthy has become a destination where every day, thousands of readers across the globe look to Kimberly for accessible design ideas and inspiration for their homes and their lives.

Kunal Daswani

Kunal Daswani is one of Chennai’s leading advertising, fashion and food photographers. He has a passion for creating powerful images both for art as well as commerce, as long as they tell a story. You can follow him on Instagram @kunaldaswani

Preeti Shenoy

Preeti Shenoy, among the top five highest selling authors in India, is also on the Forbes longlist of the most influential celebrities in India. She is the highest selling woman writer in India. Her work has been translated to many languages.

India Today has named her as being unique for being the only woman in the best-selling league. She has been awarded the ‘Indian of the Year’ award  for 2017 by Brands Academy for her contribution to Literature. She has also received the  Academia award for Business Excellence by the New Delhi Institute of Management. She is the recipient of  the ‘100 Young Indian women Achievers award’ in the Powerful leader category. She has given  talks in many premier educational institutions such as IITs and IIMs and corporate organisations like KPMG, Infosys and Accenture. She is also an artist specialising in portraiture and illustrated journalling.

Her short stories and poetry have been published in various magazines such as Conde Nast and Verve.

She has a very popular blog and also writes a weekly column in The Financial Chronicle. She has a massive online following. Her other interests are travel, photography and yoga. Her books include It’s All In The Planets, Why We Love The Way We Do, The Secret Wish List, The One You Cannot Have and many others.

Quincy Larson

Quincy Larson is the creator of freeCodeCamp.org, a community where you can learn to code for free. He is also the editor of freeCodeCamp’s Medium publication, the most popular technology publication on Medium.

Rajiv Dingra

Rajiv Dingra is the Founder and CEO of WATConsult, the most awarded digital and social media agency, founded in the year 2007. An entrepreneur and a thought leader in the digital space, he currently leads a team of 300+ people at WATConsult. In 2015 Rajiv sold majority stake in WATConsult which became a part of global advertising network Dentsu Aegis Network. Rajiv is now part of the Digital Council and Executive Board at Dentsu Aegis Network India.

Over the last 11 years, Rajiv has worked with more than 100 global and Indian brands for the digital media campaigns and strategies. Under Rajiv’s leadership WATConsult has won seven Digital Agency of the Year awards in last 3 years. Rajiv has been nominated as the digital person of the year at E4M Indian digital media awards two years consecutively and also won ‘The young social media entrepreneur of the year’ at CMO Asia Singapore and the Agency CEO of the year at the Media Ace Awards 2015. Rajiv has also been featured as a Linkedin Power Profile in 2016 and 2017 under Marketing and Advertising category.

Rajiv has been a global speaker at Digital Media World Forum, Dubai, Amsterdam and London, Social Media Enterprise Forum, Dubai, Malaysia social media week and Afri-tech Summit Kenya. Rajiv has also been an active jury member across prestigious award shows like Global DMA echo;  Digipub Awards; Goafest Abby’s; Effies; Mobbys; IDMA; Bees Social Media Awards (San Francisco); DMAi Awards, India; Afaqs Digies Awards India and Smarties Mobile awards, India.

Rashmi Bansal

Rashmi Bansal is a writer, entrepreneur and a youth expert. An author of 7 bestselling books on entrepreneurship which have sold more than 1 million copies and been translated in 12 languages, including Korean and Vietnamese. Her popular titles include ‘Stay Hungry Stay Foolish’, ‘Connect the Dots’ and ‘Take Me Home’.

Her 8th book ‘God’s Own Kitchen’ is the inspiring story of Akshaya Patra – a social enterprise run by monks and CEOs.It releases in March 2017.

Rashmi co-founded JAM (Just Another Magazine) which went on to become India’s most popular youth magazine. Her popular blog Youthcurry features her writings on youth, careers and entrepreneurship. Rashmi is a columnist on Rediff.com and is a regular contributor to Businessworld magazine. She has also been Consulting Editor with business news channel Bloomberg UTV where she hosted India’s first call-in show on careers ‘Stay Hungry’.

She is also the founder of bloodygoodbook.com, a platform to discover and epublish budding authors.

Rashmi mentors numerous students and young entrepreneurs and has spoken at various corporates and institutes of national and international repute namely, IIM Ahmedabad, ISB Hyderabad and Kellogg School of Management. She graduated in Economics from Sophia College, Mumbai and did her MBA from IIM Ahmedabad in 1993.

Rochelle Maria Rao

Rochelle is an extremely popular celebrity in the Modern TV Industry and an extremely engaging social media influencer.

Born and Brought up in Chennai, she also holds a degree in B.Scin Electronic Media.

Post graduation, Rochelle participated in the FeminaMiss India South Peagent, January 2012 where she stood Runner Up. She also participated in FeminaMiss India where she emerged as FeminaMiss India -International 2012 and went ahead to represent India at Miss International 2012 at Japan the same year.

Rochelle became  a popular face of the Indian Television Industry soon after being crowned the FeminaMiss India International.

She had also hosted the Indian Premier League Season 6 and 7 Rochelle also has been a part of some incredible shows on TV -JhalakDikhlaJaa, KhatronKeKhiladi, BiggBoss, etc. Engaged to Keith Sequeira, the couple has been in the headlines for a long time for their unmatched chemistry. She is also a part of The Kapil Sharma Show, as she plays a diverse set of Roles from time to time.

Sidin Vadukut

Sidin Vadukut is an editor, columnist and foreign correspondent with Mint. His previous books include the best-selling Dork trilogy—office-culture humour novels; The Sceptical Patriot—a collection of essays on Indian history; and The Corpse That Spoke—the true story of a British-Indian family that vanished under mysterious circumstances. Sidin is currently completing a Master’s in Historical Research at Birkbeck College, University of London. In October 2017, he will start a doctoral research programme on charity in the medieval economy. He previously graduated from the National Institute of Technology, Trichy and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Sidin lives in London with his wife and daughter. He supports Arsenal Football Club.

———————–

This is just a part of the jury! for more head over to Jury at The Indian Blogger Awards Page.