Outstanding Young Hero from India receives Award in Memory of Princess Diana

Young person from India is honoured with The Diana Award for going above and beyond in their daily life to create and sustain positive change.

Aniket Gupta aged 18, from India has been recognised with the highest accolade a young person can achieve for social action or humanitarian efforts – The Diana Award.

Established in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Award is given out by the charity of the same name and has the support of both her sons, The Duke of Cambridge and The Duke of Sussex.

Aniket founded the ‘Indian Science and Technology Campaign’ (ISTC) to encourage students to be innovative and creative in their thinking through a practical approach. His vision ‘practicality is everything’ grew from a realisation that the tendency to cram for exams meant that many students failed when it came to ‘thinking skills and understanding concepts’. Since then, he has supported 19,000 students and 900 teachers with practical initiatives, including a programme combining science with entrepreneurial skills to create innovative, economical and constructive prototypes with worldwide benefits for big problems. Now, Aniket’s initiative has been also joined by a volunteer team of 600 university students to develop low-cost practical experiments to explain complex scientific concepts at school level.

Tessy Ojo, CEO of The Diana Award, says:
“We congratulate all our new Diana Award recipients who are changemakers for their generation. We know by receiving this honour they will inspire more young people to get involved in their communities and begin their own journey as active citizens. For over twenty years The Diana Award has valued and invested in young people encouraging them to continue to make positive change in their communities and lives of others.”

WHAT IS THE NOMINATION PROCESS?

Award recipients have been put forward by adults who know the young people in a professional capacity and recognised their efforts as a positive contribution to society. Through a rigorous nomination process, these nominators had to demonstrate the nominee’s impact in five key areas: Vision, Social Impact, Inspiring Others, Youth Leadership, and Service Journey.

There are 13 Diana Award Judging Panels representing each UK region or nation and a further three panels representing countries outside of the UK. Each panel consist of three judges; one young person, an education or youth work professional, and a business or government representative. The panels have an important main purpose: to determine which nominations from each UK region/nation/country will receive The Diana Award.

Nominations are judged using the Criteria Guide and Scoring Guide which have been created to measure quality of youth social action.