Reliance World, the retail arm of Reliance ADA Group, has announced the final winners of National Digital Elocution Competition (NDEC) 2009. Ambuj Sahu from Delhi Public School, Korba, won the first prize in the junior category and Rajkanya Adhikari from Sunbeam Bhagwanpur School, Varanasi, was awarded the first place in the senior category. The second and third places in the junior category went to Sidarth S from St. Joseph’s BHSC School, Ooty and Niharika A from Crescent School, Ooty respectively. Avichal Bhatnagar from Delhi Public School, RK Puram, New Delhi and Sruveera Sadhana from Trips International School, Rajahmundry bagged the second and third prizes in the senior category. Prizes for the winners include a Windows PC and a trophy for themselves, a shield, scholarships for other students in need in their school and a complete website setup for the school.
Online Voting formed an integral part of NDEC 2009 and there was a special prize for the Most Voted Video. Participants vied with one another to gather the most number of votes and several videos received more than 50,000 online votes and were viewed more than 3 lac times. The total number of video views and online votes this year crossed 21 and 8 lacs respectively. Vipul Betala from DAV Public School, Cuttack won the special prize—a Windows PC—for the Most Voted Video. His video received 1,21,969 online votes.
Speaking about NDEC’s fourth edition, Sunil Buch, Head-Marketing & Corporate Sales, Reliance World, said, “NDEC 2009 has surpassed the previous years in terms of participation numbers and engagement levels. What’s interesting about this year’s competition is that with the exception of one finalist from Delhi, all the other winners are from smaller cities and towns. This shows that NDEC has touched virtually every corner of the country”.
Congratulating the winners, Rishi Srivastava, Consumer & Online Marketing Officer, Microsoft India said, “It has been exciting to see the level of student participation in NDEC 2009 - from large to the smallest cities and towns across the country. As technology touches more and more of our lives, online safety is becoming critical, and it was enriching to see how aware India’s next generation is on this aspect.”
Reliance World and Microsoft recently concluded the final round of NDEC 2009. Around 10,000 students from various parts of the country registered for the competition. The participants were divided into junior (class V-VII) and senior (class VIII-X) categories and were given fresh topics for each level of the competition. In the preliminary round, Microsoft used the NDEC platform to impress upon the participants the importance of Internet security by asking them to speak on the topics, ‘If I were a PC’ (junior category) and ‘Staying safe on the Internet... my online playground’ (senior category). The participants recorded and submitted their elocution online using VDO Contest—a web-based application that enabled them to showcase and promote their elocution talent across boundaries.
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The Finals were held on Video Conferencing. The selected participants were invited to a Reliance World in their cities and were evaluated live by a panel of judges using the Video Conference infrastructure at Reliance World. The topics for the finals were, ‘Cricket or football: Which sport is more fun?’ (junior category) and ‘Diversity is a great teacher’ (senior category). All the participants had prepared well for the finals and the judges had a hard time selecting the winners. Several parameters including content, confidence levels and delivery of the elocution speech were used to assess and finalize the winners.
Reliance World’s National Digital Elocution Competition, currently in its fourth year, is an annual creative talent hunt to promote creativity amongst school children using cutting-edge technology. Open to students in class V to X, National Digital Elocution Competition provides participants with the opportunity to showcase their elocution talent and compete digitally with their peers in other parts of the country.
About Reliance World
Reliance World is a world-class nationwide chain of retail outlets for products and services of the Reliance—Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. It is designed to give the customer a delightful experience of the digital world of information, communication, entertainment and utility services.
Besides offering telephony products and services, Reliance World leverages Reliance’s countrywide broadband network to offer High-Speed Internet, Online Gaming, Video Conferencing, Digital Electronic News Gathering, Digital Services, eLearning, Virtual Office and many more services. It also offers DTH Subscriptions (BIG TV), DVD Rentals (Big Flix), Personal Financial Services (Reliance Money) and Travel Booking (Yatra). Currently, there are 242 Reliance World outlets across 105 cities in India and the network continues to expand to more locations and cities.
About Microsoft’s Consumer & Online Business
Microsoft’s Consumer & Online business aims to create a seamless experience for consumers across PCs, phones, and the Web. The Consumer & Online business drives all sales, marketing, content & programming, business development, and operations across Windows Vista, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, MSN, Live Search, advertising sales and other services.
About Microsoft India
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software - any time, any place and on any device. Microsoft Corporation India Private Ltd is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation USA. It has had a presence in India since 1990 and currently has offices in 16 cities - Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jamshedpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, and Pune.
