Five extraordinary days in Hyderabad, India. I'm honored to have served on the World Summit Awards' Grand Jury for the second time. Being part of 26 jurors from 24 different countries, all discussing global innovation, is a mind-opening and humbling experience. My gratitude to Prof. Dr. Peter A. Bruck, Nora Wolloch, Katharina Weber, and the rest of the wonderful WSA team for having me — and for the outstanding organization throughout.
Hats off to the host, the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), led by the one and only Osama Manzar, who keeps raising the bar on how local communities can work side by side with external ecosystem players and government to foster digitization and build well-planned digital-literacy tools and programs. And to Sri Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary of the Department of Information Technology, Electronics & Communications, who showed how a government with a will, a plan, and clear targets can achieve wonders in building a digital society.
To all the finalists: congratulations — you made the jury's job very hard. It was an honor to take part in such an intelligent, generous gathering of people from across the world.