Social Media for Empowerment Award 2014
Maneesha Wijesekara UCSC 3rd Year student became runner-up at the Social Media for Empowerment Award 2014 organized by the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) for the second consecutive time. Competition was open for people from eight South Asian countries under nine categories showing immense use of Social Media for Social Good. Selection process of finalists was done in 2 stages. First stage, all submissions was reviewed by a set of virtual jurors to shortlist the applicants. Thereafter final selection of the finalists was done by a grand jury. Awards ceremony was held on 20th and 21st of November 2014 at New Delhi.
The submitted Project was a combined project with more than 20 causes under “Crowd Funding” category for social media empowerment awards 2014. This category recognizes efforts that look at raising funds through the use of social media platforms. This submission based on a social media page has around 86000 Sri Lankan fans. When describing the causes which take part as Cooperate Social Responsibility (CSR) through this page can be categorized into few more sections. Most of the projects were for funding necessities and some of them were asking non-financial help for people like urgent blood groups , kidneys , finding missing people likewise.
Student Role and Cooperation
Crowd funding through social media isn’t an easy task to carryout. it was initiated by Maneesha, the founder and the only person who managed the CSR projects through his social media page. Considering the validity, urgency and transparency of the projects, it was implemented with the help of separate groups for different projects.
Award
Among all initiatives from eight different countries this project was selected as one of the four finalist in crowd funding category and the only one qualified for the final stage from Sri Lanka. Project was awarded as runner-up from my crowd funding category in the grand finale of social media for digital empowerment awards 2014 which held on 20th November in New Delhi.
Student Details
Name – Liyanage Maneesha Heshan Wijesekara
Degree – Bachelor of Information and Communication Technology (3rd Year)
Photos/Video
Video for the submission – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7dwn4xGzKo
