KSA Trust Announces ‘The Champions of Chennai’ Award

CHENNAI, India - July 11, 2013 - PRLog -- KSA Trust, a non-profit organization and the charitable initiative of leading Chartered Accountants in the city, Kalyanasundaram& Associates (KSA) and Tandem Consulting, its associate company, today announced the constitution of ‘The Champions of Chennai Award’ to recognize the citizens of Chennai who have made a difference in the fields of Education, Arts, Social Initiative, Enterprise, Healthcare and Sports.The recipients of the awards will be decided and announced at a grand function to be held in the third week of August2013.

Founders of the Trust

The trust has been formed by Kalyanasundaram & Associates (KSA) and Tandem.

Kalyanasundaram & Associates is a firm of Chartered Accountants with 8 offices spread across Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Dubai. Tandem Consulting is an off shoot of KSA and is a 10 year old company providing accounting and payroll services in Chennai and Bengaluru.

Trustees

The Board of Trustees includes the following representatives from KSA and Tandem:-

1.      K. Kalyanasundaram, Founder and Chief Partner, KSA

2.      T. R. Gopalakrishnan, Managing Partner, KSA

3.      R. Manikandan, CEO, Tandem

Motivation

This initiative coincides with the 25^th year of KSA’s formation and the 10^thyear of Tandem’s formation and is their way of expressing its gratitude to the city that has helped it grow.

How did we arrive at this idea?

We wanted to do something that is substantial and yet sustainable. Thus, it had to be something that will have an impact that is disproportionately more than the costs and effort going into the same. Besides, it also had to be affordable because that is the only way that the initiative can be sustained over a long period.

The trustees have been working on several charitable activities in their personal capacities for many years now. And for some years now have been thinking of instituting awards to recognize as a means of social change.  Looking around, we saw a number of people who were doing outstanding service in their respective fields and yet went about their jobs silently and without seeking any recognition.There are a number of awards in India. But many of them are at national level and have little or no impact on the common man. Besides, a person being recognized on a national level is already well-known and needs no introduction. India, with a population of 1300 million and almost 50% of them in the 0-25 age group, is bursting with the energy of the youth. Channelizing the energy of the youth into positive activities will benefit the country immensely.We, thus concluded that we could serve the society by identifying and honouring these silent workers who contribute positively for the betterment of their field and thus serve as role models to the youth of the nation.

Core Team

The core team, including the trustees, is personally involved in making this dream a reality. This core team is supported exceptionally by a number of experts and service providers like educationists, artists, ace photographers, designers, writers, editors, journalists, business persons and many more.

Evolution of the award

Having decided to recognize outstanding persons, we brain-stormed and arrived at the following criteria / parameters:-

·         The awards will be given every year on 17^th August, the date on which KSA was formed in 1988

·         The awards will initially cover arts, sports, education, healthcare, social initiative and enterprise. More categories may be added later on.

·         The awardee should be from Chennai and should have positively impacted people in Chennai

·         Age, sex, caste, creed no bar

·         The awardee will be given the title “Champion of Chennai”

·         The award will consist of a trophy and citation

·         An Awards Book profiling the awardees will be released on the day and distributed free of cost

Process of identifying and judging

·         An accomplished individual from each of the different fields were enrolled as advisors

·         The advisors include Mrs. Alamelu Gopalan, former Principal Vidya Mandir, Mylapore and Mr. O.S.Arun, classical singer and a few others.

·         They were requested to come up with a list of names for the respective fields of their strength

·         A detailed research was done on each of the nominees suggested by the advisors

·         Based on the research and available data, the nominees were shortlisted and ranked

·         The winner was chosen on the relative rankings and also feedback from the advisors and members of the public.

Mr. K Kalyanasundaram, Managing Partner, Kalyanasundaram & Associates, said, “We have formed the KSA Trust to carry out sustainable social initiatives so as to give back to society which has helped us excel in our profession. We are celebrating the 25^thyear of Kalyanasundaram & Associates, and we thought it would be the perfect opportunity for us to give something back to our society by recognizing individuals who have made outstanding contributions to our society.” “By highlighting people who have done stellar services to their community and society at large, KSA Trust is trying to promote the idea that the acknowledgement of one person’s good effort could have a much larger effect on society and eventually impact the very culture of the society” Mr. Kalyanasundaram added.

Through this award, the KSA Trust is hoping to encourage the awardees to carry on their outstanding work and in doing so inspire millions more to work towards similar goals and become a symbol of aspiration and recognition.

The inaugural Champions of Chennai Awards function will be held on August 17, 2013 at the Chinmaya Heritage Centre, Harrington Road, Nungambakkam, from 6.30pm onwards. A specially designed trophy will be given to each awardee. A coffee table book featuring the awardees and their achievements will be distributed free to invitees, guests and well-wishers.

People of Chennai can send in their nominations for The Champion of Chennai Award to the KSA Trust by mail atkalyan@ksaca.com