And the British Council's Young Creative Entrepreneur for 2012 is?

The British Council’s Young Creative Entrepreneur Awards celebrate and connect an international network of emerging entrepreneurs who demonstrate leadership across the creative sectors. The award seeks to attract Indian entrepreneurs between 21 and 40 years old with at least 2 to 3 years experience, working within these creative industries in India. The YCE award goes beyond recognising the achievements of these entrepreneurs but aims to reward them for their contribution to their respective sectors and provide them a platform to begin a dialogue with their UK counterparts. The British Council announced the National Winners of the Young Creative Entrepreneur 2012 Awards in Kolkata and the two categories for which the awards were given were:

A)    Design for Social Impact – Winner Sandeep Sanguru

B)    Digital for Creative Industries – Winner Pawan Kumar

Sandeep Sangaru has been actively involved with the Craft Sector working with local people with local material to create global products. One such project called the ‘Truss-Me’ bamboo range of furniture won him the Red Dot Design Award – Best of the Best 2009. At the Design for Asia Award 2011- Truss-Me won the Grand Award and the Gold Award.

Actor and director Pawan Kumar’s new movie LUCIA is the first film in Kannada to be completely Crowd Funded. Audience from all corners of the globe chipped in small chunks of funds and now the film is half way into production. He is now attempting to develop a setup which will help other film makers in finding their producers. His new online venture which helps filmmakers distribute films to audience across the globe.

The judges for the Digital for Creative Industries Award were Dr. Naresh Gupta, Senior Vice President, Print and Publishing Business Unit & Managing Director, Adobe India, BV Jagadeesh, technology entrepreneur, venture capitalist and philanthropist, Ananda Sen, musician and applications expert. The judges for the Design for Social Impact Award were Satish Gokhale, Founder, Design Directions, Anita Ahuja, Founder, Conserve India and Bappaditya Biswas, Founder, Bailou

Noted entrepreneur Shabnam Ramaswamy of Street Survivors India, Murshidabad, delivered a brief talk on entrepreneurship and creativity on the occasion. The YCE Awards Night 2012 also featured a performance by ShadowBlink and Ankur. The awards night was presented in partnership with The Park, Kolkata and Ballantine’s.

The winners from each sector will go on a study tour of their respective industry to the UK. They get to interact with industry leaders in the UK and play an important role in increasing collaborative opportunities between the UK and India. They also get to attend a relevant trade event that helps broaden their horizon along with winners from other countries.

The British Council plays an active role in the creative industry in India and focuses mainly on capacity building and encouraging collaborations between the UK and India. For seven years, the award have been run in different sector specific areas. From 2012, British Council has decided to limit to specific themes that have greater resonance with the contemporary contexts, both locally in India as well as in the UK. The sharper focus on specific areas will mean that they can service the YCE network better and find relevant opportunities for them as well as highlight areas that are seeing maximum innovation and eliciting the maximum interest.

For information on the shortlisted candidates in each category visit British Council YCE.