Two Indians among five chosen for Rolex award for excellence in enterprise

NEW DELHI: An Indian engineer working on developing Braille smartphone and an environmentalist trying to restore a Chennai lake were among five persons selected for an international award for excellence in enterprise.

The two Indians were among the five persons selected for the Rolex Award for Enterprise, which were announced today.

Environmentalist Arun Krishnamurthy (25), who also owns a public relations firm, is awarded for his efforts to restore the Lake Kilkattalai, the longest in Chennai, with the help of more than 900 school children.

Sumit Dagar (29), an engineer who left a job and started his own company, is working on developing Braille based smart phone for visually challenged.

Krishnamurthy said his project would be completed by February 2014.

Asked why he prefers to work with children, he said "children are readily available to volunteer. They keep challenging you intellectually at every level and helps you remain up to the mark and are future leaders."

Dagar said the new phone will be accustomed to local langauages making it user-friendly for the people in the country who do not understand 'English'.

"The basic phone would be ready in 12 months and would cost around Rs 8,000 and will be primarily for Indian market," he said.

The other three awardees belong to Scotland, Italy and Mexico.

Two of the winners Karina Atkinson (Scotland) and Maritza Morales Casanova (Mexico) are working on environment and conservation-related projects. Selene Biffi (Italy) is working to establish community-based storytelling school in Afghanistan.