Indian American wins global digital literacy champion award
By Arun Kumar, Indo-Asian News Service

Washington, Aug 9 (IANS) An Indian American pioneer in digital
education, Appu Kuttan, has won the prestigious 2006 Champions of
Digital Literacy Inspiration Award for making the most contributions
globally to bridging the digital divide over the years.

Kuttan, chairman and founder of CyberLearning, the global non-profit
leader in digital education, was presented the award by David Saedi,
president and CEO of Certiport, at a ceremony at Disney World in
Orlando, Florida, Saturday.

"This award is given in recognition of exceptional vision and
leadership in bridging the digital divide. We selected Appu Kuttan
unanimously for this prestigious award because of his outstanding
leadership efforts and contributions towards bridging the digital
divide by advancing digital literacy in many countries over many
years," he said.

Kuttan was chosen for the Inspiration Award from 13 Champions of
Digital Literacy award recipients. They included education,
government, corporate and non-profit leaders from China, Japan,
Greece, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Puerto Rico and the US, a Certport
release said.

Kuttan founded CyberLearning in 1994, and has since built it into the
world's leading global non-profit organisation bridging the digital
divide through digital education.

CyberLearning has trained over a million disadvantaged students and
adults in digital literacy and IT skills. Its programmes have been
implemented in the US, India, Jordan, Egypt and Mauritius among
others.

Kuttan's contribution to digital and IT education spans 20 years from
advising late Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi on making India an IT
power, to currently helping Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam
transform Mauritius into an IT-focused nation by providing digital
literacy and IT education to 400,000 Mauritians to providing digital
education to thousands of disadvantaged school students and teachers
in the US and India.

"I am heartened that many country leaders have asked us to help them
replicate the Mauritius model in their countries by implementing
cost-effective holistic systems for digital literacy and IT
education," Kuttan said.

Kuttan is an international management and education systems expert,
and author of several innovative concepts, such as "CyberLearning,"
"Management By Systems (MBS)," "Total Tennis" and "Holistic
Executive."

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