WSJ Award for TCS’ mKrishi
Wireless Agri-advisory Service
Tata
Consultancy Services (TCS), a leading global tech outsourcing organization
in India, says that The Wall Street Journal, a leading business
publication, has selected TCS's mKrishi service as the winner of its 2008
Technology Innovation Award in the wireless technology category. The award
recognizes companies, individuals, and organizations worldwide for
technological breakthroughs in areas such as medicine, software, the
Internet, wireless and consumer electronics.
TCS's
mobile based crop-advisory service, mKrishi, is an approach to helping
rural farmers throughout India have better access to information through a
cell phone application.
It has
been developed to provide personalized information and expert advice to
rural farmers in their local language using sensor technology. It is also
adaptable to illiterate farmers to make a query from a cell phone using
voice-specific functions.
According
to TCS, The Wall Street Journal received more than 700 entries for the
Innovation Awards, and a Journal editor narrowed the field down to the 162
that were scored by the judges. Winners were chosen based on whether the
technology represented a breakthrough from conventional methods, rather
than just an incremental improvement.
"This
award is a testament to the culture of innovation in TCS and to our
commitment to creating value for clients, the community, and society
through pioneering new standards of technology and business models," said
S. Ramadorai, CEO and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services.
According to TCS, the list of award winners is included in the print
editions of The Wall Street Journal dated September 29, and on The Wall
Street Journal's web site at
http://www.wsj.com/.
The service,
according to The Wall Street
Journal, is
still being tested and hasn't been launched commercially, but TCS plans to
eventually make it available in 22 of India's official languages.
Though the technology itself isn't new, "it
does bring together a number of things that are quite useful," says
William Webb, head of research and development at the U.K. Office of
Communications and a member of the judging panel. "And it certainly does
fit into that category of being a very worthy application."
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