ACM India Outstanding Applied Innovation in Computing Award

Nominations

Overview

The ACM India Outstanding Applied Innovation in Computing (OAIC) Award aims to recognize organizations to highlight, acknowledge, and reward exceptional examples of applied computing innovation, for profit or non-profit objectives. While the application can be in any domain, the core focus of the innovation should be on computing.  The award will be given to the organizations for a submitted innovation (aka project, initiative) including one winner and up to two honourable mentions every year. The winner and the honourable mentions organizations will be felicitated at the ACM India Annual Event along with a cash prize of INR 5 Lakhs  and INR 2 Lakhs  respectively. The financial support for this award is provided by Zoho Corporation. 

Deadline

Nominations are due by 15 September 2025, 11 pm IST. This is a hard deadline. The recipient will be announced by 31 December 2025.

Eligibility

  • The candidate applied innovation is pertaining to the computing domain.
  • The proposing organisation should have a registered office in India.
  • Majority of the contributions should have been made by members based in India (even if working for a multinational company).
  • The nominator should be a part of the proposing organization at the time of submitting the application. In a case where the nominator is no longer associated with the organization at the time of award announcement - he/she should be replaced with a new nominator.
  • The first public disclosure of the innovation was made on or after January 1, 2020. The public disclosure could be in any form where it is shared with audiences who are not a part of the parent organization including but not limited to press releases, client deployment, patent filing, scientific paper submission etc.
  • A maximum of 10 contributors can be listed against the candidate initiative. One of them should be marked as the corresponding contributor (a.k.a. nominator). The list of contributors can have members from different parts of the organization as well as collaborators outside of the organization. In case there are external collaborators - it should be explicitly stated that the nominating organization is the primary driver and owner of the project.
  • The members of the OAIC Award Committee cannot be a nominator, contributor or endorser of any nominations.
  • While information disclosed as part of the application and verification processes will be considered confidential to the committee, the nominator should get any required clearances in advance, as necessary, to share this information with ACM India.

Nomination

  • Nominations for the award should be submitted using the online ACM India Award nomination form.
  • The nominator must take prior consent of all the listed contributors (a.k.a. nominees) before submitting the nomination.
  • Nominators will be required to indicate whether they are aware of any action committed by any identified contributor that violates the ACM Code of Ethics and ACM’s Core Values. See the Policy for Honors Conferred by ACM.
  • An organization can submit one nomination in each cycle of the award.
  • A nomination will remain in consideration for a period of up to 3 years from first submission, provided other eligibility criteria are met; details of the nomination may be updated if a nomination from a previous year is considered in a subsequent year.

Timelines and Nature of the Award

  • The award will consist of a plaque and a prize of INR 5 Lakhs and 2 Lakhs for the winner and the honorable mentions respectively.
  • The nomination deadline is 15 September 2025, 11 pm IST, and the recipient would be announced by 31 December 2025. No extensions to the nomination deadline will be granted.
  • The award ceremony will be held during the ACM India Annual Event in February/March of the subsequent year. The winning entry will be expected to deliver a talk in the Annual Event (or in any of its collocated events). The costs for the travel and stay of up to 2 members of the winning team will be borne by ACM India.

Submissions

Nominations for the award should be submitted using the online ACM India Award nomination form. Submitted materials should explain the contribution in terms understandable to a non-specialist. Each nomination involves several components:

  • Name, address, phone number, and email address of the nominator.
  • Names and email addresses of the all contributors
  • Suggested citation if the initiative is selected. This should be a concise statement (maximum of 50 words) describing the key features of the innovation and impact thereof for which the innovation merits this award. Note that the final wording for awardees will be at the discretion of the Award Committee.
  • 2-page nomination statement/executive summary addressing why the initiative should receive this award. This should clearly bring out distinguishing features of the initiatives and its impact to draw particular attention that merit the award. Here are some representative (but not prescriptive) details which may be included in the statement:
    • In-use?: has the initiative resulted in a practical outcome that is deployed and in-use? This is to distinguish the initiatives from innovations that are potentially great but did not see the light of the day.
    • Value?: What value has it created? It could be in terms of financials (e.g., cost saved, revenue increased, carbon footprint reduction, growth in number of users) and non-financials (e.g., social good, lives impacted, customer satisfaction improved).
    • Visible?: How visible has the work been internally (within the company) and externally (in the world)? This section should highlight aspects such as media coverage, social media impact, customer testimonials, conference and events where the work was presented, other awards this work might have won etc. has the initiative received.
    • Innovative?: What is the core technology innovation in Computing that powered this work? Why is it novel? While it is not necessary that the initiative is led by scientific papers, one may refer to the relevant scientific artifacts from the public domain.
  • Supporting letters from 3 endorsers with at least 1 being outside the proposing organisation (client, industry leader, etc.). Endorsers ideally should be senior leaders (both from within and outside the organisation) who are well-recognised and credible in their own merit. Each letter must include the name, address, and telephone number of the endorser, and should focus on the impact that the endorser can personally attest to and place in context. The nominator should collect these letters and bundle them for submission.

Acknowledgement

The Award nomination and evaluation procedures will follow ACM's Conflict of Interest Guidelines for Awards Committees and with the ACM Policy for Conferring Honors. If COI issues arise, these issues will be raised to the ACM Awards co-chairs or ACM India Awards Steering Committee for resolution.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

  • I run an early stage startup where we have developed a product which qualifies for nomination for the OAIC award. Does my project stand a chance to win the award against large projects from big companies?
    • The award committee will consider the submissions in the context of the submitting organisation and not necessarily on an absolute scale. Hence a project e.g. with a Billion dollar impact may not be considered large for a large organization. However for some other relatively smaller size organization a project with a few million dollar impact could potentially be huge. In fact - it is possible that the Committee may reach out to the submitting organisation for more details to form a well-founded view to assess the project.
  • Can I nominate an older innovation?
    • Only innovations first publicly disclosed on or after January 1, 2020 are eligible. Disclosure could be via press release, patent filing, product launch, etc.
  • Can I update a nomination in future years?
    • A nomination remains under consideration for up to 3 years, provided eligibility is still met. You may update submission materials in subsequent years.
  • Can individuals apply, or is it only for organizations?
    • The award is intended for organizations, though it acknowledges specific contributing individuals (max 10). An individual cannot submit a personal innovation unless it's through their organization.
  • What if my organization needs to maintain confidentiality?
    • While all submissions are treated as confidential by the committee, the nominator must obtain necessary internal clearances before submission.
  • Who evaluates the nominations?
    • An independent Award Committee, comprising senior professionals and academics appointed by the ACM India Council. Members must not have a conflict of interest with the nominations.
  • What evaluation criteria will be used?
  • Submissions will be assessed on:
  • Practical use/deployment
  • Impact and value created
  • Internal and external visibility
  • Depth of computing innovation
  • Who funds this award?
    • The award is financially supported by Zoho Corporation.
  • Where can I ask further questions?