International award for Telangana's Chief Innovation Officer

Hyderabad : Telangana's Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) Shanta Thoutam has received the World Innovation Award at the first BRICS Innovation Forum held in Moscow.

The award is given for outstanding contribution to the Sustainable Development Goal-4 that ensures inclusive and equitable quality education and promotes lifelong opportunities for all.

The World Innovation Award, organized by World Organisation for Development, an international NGO with special consultative status with United Nations Economic & Social Council, honors leaders from the developing world that have made an outstanding personal contribution to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals through a systematic effort to implement innovative solutions.

The other two nominees in the category were Fernando Padula Novaes, Municipal Minister of Education of Sao Paulo in Brazil and Saif Al-Hiddabi, Undersecretary of Research and Innovation at the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation in Oman.

Shanta Thoutam completed 7 years of her service in the innovation ecosystem of Telangana starting with the role of Vice President at T-Hub, then Officer on Special Duty (OSD) for State Handlooms and Textiles Department, and currently serving as the first woman CIO.

With over 30 countries' representatives at the first-of-its-kind forum, Shanta Thoutam as one of the panelists in the Cloud City Conference enlightened about the various pathbreaking initiatives and achievements of the government of Telangana in the space of open data, digital innovation, and urban development.

She highlighted the Command Control Center in Hyderabad on ensuring the citizens' security by analysing visual data captured from 1 lakh CCTV cameras, and Open Data Portal that hosts data sets in the public domain leading to a transparency in the working of the government and triggering innovative solutions from various stakeholders.