The Asian Awards

Voting Information for Registered Judges

Welcome to The Asian Awards judges information area. We have tried to keep the process relatively simple and clear in order to reduce the burden on you as a judge.

Instructions for judges

  • Immediately below you will see a list of the categories that will be judged at the 7th Asian Awards. Please click on those categories you feel your experience is most suited to judging. You are welcome to judge as many categories you feel suitable.
  • When you click on the category you will see the list of nominees. All you are required to do is note down the names of the people you would like to nominate in order of preference for each category (top 3 in order).
  • You can download the criteria for judging here.
  • Once you have chosen your nominees please email the list to voting@theasianawards.com. Please include your name on the email so that we can verify the nominations.
  • You will note that some of the categories are marked with the following comment "A previous deferment has already been accepted for this category. Therefore no judging is required." In these cases the winner deferred acceptance from the 6th Awards.

  • Mukesh Ambani

    Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian business magnate and the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, the largest private sector enterprise in India, a Fortune 500 company, and one of the largest private sector conglomerates in the world.

    • Ambani set up one of the largest and most complex information and communications technology initiatives in the world in the form of Reliance Infocomm Limited (now Reliance Communications Limited).
    • Chosen as the businessman of the year 2007 by a public poll in India conducted by NDTV
    • As of December 2016, he was the third richest man in Asia with a personal wealth of US$22.5 billion. He is curently the richest person of Indian origin in the world.
    • On 29 October 2007, a strong rally in the Indian stock market and the appreciation of the Indian rupee boosted the market capitalisation of all Reliance group companies, making him for a while the world’s richest man, with net worth climbing to US$63.2 billion leaving Bill Gates behind at around $56 billion.
    • He is also a member of the International Advisory Board, a globalist think tank council on foreign relations.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Indra Nooyi

    Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi (born October 28, 1955 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India ) is the Chairperson and CEO of PepsiCo Incorporated. On August 14, 2006, Nooyi was named the successor to Steven Reinemund as chief executive officer of the company effective October 1, 2006. On February 5, 2007, she was named Chairperson, effective May 2, 2007

    • In 2007 she became the fifth CEO in PepsiCo's 44-year history
    • According to BusinessWeek, since she started as CFO in 2000, the company's annual revenues have risen 72%, while net profit more than doubled
    • She is the 4th most powerful woman in the world today. Her story lays emphasis on true values of life. Although she faced many hurdles while reaching the highest peak in international level, she walks with pride holding the dignity and honour of her most loved country, India. As a staunch believer of faith, Nooyi states that success rests on three important factors, "family, friends and faith." Although an entrepreneur of one of the biggest firms of the US, Nooyi attributes her success to her employees. She views PepsiCo as her extended family and believes that to top the speed of competition an entrepreneur should attract the best employees. As an individual she attributes most of her success to her upbringing in India. In December 2016 it was annouced that she would join President-Elect Donald Trump's business council alongside entrepreneurs Elon Musk (of Tesla) and Travis Kalanick (of Uber).
    • Wikipedia link

  • Ajay Banga

    Ajaypal "Ajay" Singh Banga is the current president and chief executive officer of MasterCard. MasterCard announced on April 12, 2010 that Ajay Banga, previously MasterCard’s president and chief operating officer, had been named by the Board of Directors to serve as the company’s president and chief executive officer, effective July 1, 2010. The company also announced that Banga would become a member of MasterCard’s Board of Directors, effective immediately.

    • On Thursday, February 5, 2015, President Barack Obama appointed Banga to serve as a Member of the President's Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.
    • Presently, he is also the chairman of the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC) representing more than three hundred of the largest international companies investing in India.
    • He is also a member of board of directors of the Dow Chemical Company; member of the Council on Foreign Relations; and member of International Business Council of the World Economic Forum.
    • Globally Mastercard has revenues of over £10bn and employs over 10,000 people.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Satya Nadella

    Satya Narayana Nadella (born August 19, 1967) is American business executive who was born in India. He is the current CEO of Microsoft. He was appointed on 4 February 2014, succeeding Steve Ballmer. Before becoming CEO of Microsoft, he was Executive Vice President of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise group, responsible for building and running the company's computing platforms, developer tools and cloud computing services.

    • Since becoming CEO he has driven the Microsoft share price from $38 to a high of $64 in December 2016 adding around $200bn to its market capitalisation.
    • Under his leadership the Windows platform and its associated devices have seen double digit growth and positive reviews from the tech community.
    • In December 2016 Nadella announced the completion of Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn for $26 billion.
    • Nadella is of Indian origin.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Wang Jianlin

    Wang Jianlin is a Chinese businessman and philanthropist. He serves as the Chairman of the Dalian Wanda Group, China's largest real estate developer, as well as the world's largest movie theater operator. He owns 20% of the Spanish football club Atlético Madrid.

    • As of December 2016 he has a personal net worth of $31bn and is the second richest Asian in the world.
    • His company owns over 10 million square metres of investment property, 58 Wanda Shopping Plazas, 15 luxury hotels, 68 cinemas, 57 department stores, and 54 karaoke centres around China.
    • The company became the world's largest theatre owner in 2012 when it acquired AMC Theaters. He bought out U.S.-based AMC Entertainment for $2.6 billion. He listed it on the New York Stock Exchange in December.
    • He acquired the landmark Edificio España building in Madrid, Spain, in March 2014 from Grupo Santander for "about a third less than the €389 million that Banco Santander paid in 2005, at the height of Spain’s construction boom".
    • In September 2013 he announced plans to build the world's largest studio pavilion at Oriental Movie Metropolis which include a 10,000 square meter studio and an underwater stage.
    • Jianlin donated $159m to rebuild a historic Buddhist temple in Nanjing.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Masayoshi Son

    Masayoshi Son born a Zainichi Korean and now a naturalized Japanese citizen, known worldwide as one of Japan’s most distinguished entrepreneurs of the digital age, is currently the Chairman and CEO of Softbank Corp. Softbank Corporation is Japan’s largest distributor of software and systems hardware, and Japan’s largest publisher of computer magazines and books. The corporation has also grown to become a leading producer of technology-related trade shows and expositions. He has a personal net worth of over $13bn.

    • Son attended high school in the United States—graduating in two weeks—then graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where he started several businesses and, at the age of 20, used his technological skills to invent and patent a device he sold to Sharp Corporation for $1 million.
    • He returned to Japan in 1981 and a year and one-half later, started Softbank. In addition to its operations in Japan, Softbank today has affiliates in the United States and Korea.
    • Softbank invested in Yahoo, Inc. in 1995, and in the following year established the joint venture Yahoo Japan Corporation.
    • The innovative flare that is characteristic of Son is the basis of Softbank’s success. His strategy of diversification has given Softbank a strong position in several key areas. The corporation’s mission is to be a premier infrastructure provider to the computer industry, creating the means by which the leading software developers, hardware manufacturers, and service providers can display, explain, and distribute their products. Less than a month after Britain voted to leave the EU, Mr Son clinched a deal to acquire UK chip designer Arm Holdings for £24.3bn. It was the largest Asian takeover of a British company.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Tadashi Yanai

    Tadashi Yanai is founder and president of Fast Retailing, of which Uniqlo ("unique clothing") is a subsidiary. He is routinely ranked as one of the richest men in Japan, and in 2016 was ranked 37th richest man in the world, making him the richest man in Japan with an estimated net worth of $19Bn

    • Fast Retailing operates more than 1,000 stores in 14 countries. It has annual sales of over $10bn. Uniqlo alone is opening about one new outlet a week and will break into Germany and Australia next spring with stores in Berlin and Melbourne.
    • The company also owns the Theory and Helmut Lang brands. Yanai's success in converting customers has helped increase the company's stock price by two-thirds over the past year.
    • Yanai is clearly an inspirational leader, and Uniqlo is a tribute to him and his management style, which is so rarely seen in a large corporation. He allows his team to be confident enough to let the designers feel free to show their personality, and he is intent on producing good products, at the right price, that people want.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Pony Ma (Ma Huateng)

    Ma Huateng also known as Pony Ma, is a Chinese entrepreneur who founded Tencent Inc., one of the largest internet companies in China. As of December 2016, he is the third richest person in China, and the 34th richest in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$20 billion.

    • The company's first product, an instant message tool named Tencent QQ, became very popular in China. Tencent soon expanded to become "China's answer to AOL".
    • He currently holds the position of Chairman and CEO of Tencent Holdings, one of the top three Chinese internet companies along with Alibaba and Baidu.
    • By the end of September 2012, Tencent's QQ instant messaging had achieved a total of 784 million active users, an increase of 10% from the previous year. In 2015 his company reported a revenue of just under $17bn with just over 1 billion users on its WeChat messaging platform.
    • Online games such as Legend of Yulong and Legend of Xuanyuan boosted revenue by more than half, up to US$ 5.1 billion, with a US$ 1.5 billion profit margin.
    • To date he has donated over $2bn to charity.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Jen-Hsun Huang

    Jen-Hsun Huang is a Taiwan-born American entrepreneur and businessman. He co-founded the graphics-processor company Nvidia and serves as its president and CEO. Huang graduated from Oregon State University before moving to California where he graduated from Stanford University. As of 2016, his personal net-worth was just under $3bn.

    • In 2016 Nvidia shares were up 170% from their price a year prior.
    • Huang gave his alma mater Stanford University US$30 million that built the "Jen-Hsun Huang School of Engineering Center.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Zhou Qunfei

    Zhou Qunfei is a Chinese entrepreneur who founded the major touchscreen maker Lens Technology. After the public listing of her company on the Shenzhen ChiNext market in March 2015, her net worth temporarily reached US$10 billion, making her the richest woman in China. After producing the touch screens for Apple's iPhone during its 2007 market entry, Lens developed into the dominant player of the industry. Lens Technology now primarily supplies touch-screens to leading electronics makers such as Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, receiving nearly 75% of its revenue from Apple and Samsung. Apple Watches use her company's glass and sapphire crystal screens. As of April 2015, the company employs about 60,000 people, and churns out more than a billion glass screens, and has 32 different factory locations.

    • Zhou is on Forbes lists as #61 in 2016 Power Women, #205 in 2016 Billionaires (#9 out of Hong Kong billionaires), #18 in 2015 China Rich List, and #30 in 2015 Richest in Tech. Fortune ranked her #18 on their 2016 Most Powerful Women of Asia-Pacific list, and she is a newcomer to the list. Bloomberg has ranked her as #211 out of the world's billionaires with a personal fortune of over $6bn.
    • Wikipedia link

A previous deferment has already been accepted for this category. Therefore no judging is required.

  • Shigeru Miyamoto

    Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese video game designer and producer. He is best known as the creator of some of the most critically acclaimed and best-selling video games of all time. Miyamoto originally joined Nintendo in 1977, when the company was beginning its foray into video games, and starting to abandon the playing cards it had made since 1889. His games have been seen on every Nintendo video game console, with his earliest work appearing on arcade machines in the late 1970s. Franchises Miyamoto has helped create include Donkey Kong, Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, F-Zero, Pikmin, and Wii.

    • Miyamoto played a major role in the development of the Wii, a console that popularized motion control gaming, and its launch title Wii Sports, which helped show the capability of the new control scheme.
    • Part of Miyamoto's development philosophy is to make his games friendly to the player; for example, the ability to save and resume one's progress. He has said that finishing touches on a game can make a large difference on the final product.
    • Miyamoto has sold hundreds of millions of copies of his work generating billions of dollars for the industry.
    • Time called Miyamoto "the Spielberg of video games" and "the father of modern video games," while The Daily Telegraph says he is "regarded by many as possibly the most important game designer of all time."
    • Wikipedia link

  • Anish Kapoor

    Sir Anish Kapoor is an Indian sculptor. He represented Britain in the XLIV Venice Biennale in 1990, when he was awarded the Premio Duemila Prize. In 1991 he received the Turner Prize and in 2002 received the Unilever Commission for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. Notable public sculptures include Cloud Gate in Chicago's Millennium Park; Sky Mirror, exhibited at the Rockefeller Center in New York City in 2006 and Kensington Gardens in London in 2010; Temenos, at Middlehaven, Middlesbrough; Leviathan, at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2011; and ArcelorMittal Orbit, commissioned as a permanent artwork for London's Olympic Park and completed in 2012.

    • Kapoor received a Knighthood in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to visual arts.
    • He was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Oxford in 2014.
    • Kapoor's Orbit was announced as the winning proposal for an artwork for the 2012 Olympic Games. The Greater London Authority selected Kapoor's sculpture from a shortlist of five artists as the permanent artwork for the Olympic Park. At 115 metres tall, Orbit is the tallest sculpture in the UK.
    • Kapoor's fortune has been estimated at around $150 million. Kapoor operates independently from any gallery although he has a longstanding working relationship with Lisson Gallery in London.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Deepak Chopra

    Deepak Chopra is an Indian-American author, public speaker and physician. He is a prominent alternative medicine advocate and is described as a "controversial New-Age guru". Through his several dozen books and videos, he has become one of the best-known and wealthiest figures in the holistic-health movement.

    • Chopra speaks and writes regularly about metaphysics, the study of consciousness and Vedanta philosophy. He is a philosophical idealist, arguing for the primacy of consciousness over matter and for purpose and intelligence in nature – that mind, or "dynamically active consciousness", is a fundamental feature of the universe.
    • As of 2016 Chopra has written 80 books, 21 of them New York Times bestsellers, which have been translated into 35 languages. According to Paul Offit, writing in 2013, Chopra's business grosses around $20 million annually, built on the sale of courses, books, videos, herbal supplements and massage oils; a year's worth of anti-aging products can cost up to $10,000. Chopra himself is estimated to be worth over $80 million as of 2014.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Vera Wang

    Vera Wang is an American fashion designer based in New York City and former figure skater. She is known for her wide range of haute couture bridesmaid gowns and wedding gown collections, as well as for her clientele of elite lady figure skaters, designing dresses for competitions and exhibitions.

    • Beginning in 1970, Wang was a senior fashion editor for Vogue but left Vogue after being turned down for the editor-in-chief position currently filled by Anna Wintour and joined Ralph Lauren as a design director for two years.
    • Wang has made wedding gowns for many well-known public figures, such as Chelsea Clinton, Karenna Gore, Ivanka Trump, Campbell Brown, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Victoria Beckham, Avril Lavigne, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Garner, Sharon Stone, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Hilary Duff, Uma Thurman, Holly Hunter, Kate Hudson, Khloe Kardashian and Kim Kardashian. Wang's evening wear has also been worn by Michelle Obama.
    • She was honored with the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Anna Sui

    Anna Sui is an American fashion designer. Sui is one of the most celebrated names in American fashion, known for her timeless designs and ability to transcend eras with historical and culturally inspired collections. She was named one of the "Top 5 Fashion Icons of the Decade" and in 2009 earned the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), joining the ranks of Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, and Diane von Furstenberg.

    • Her worldwide luxury fashion brand includes clothing, shoes, cosmetics, eyewear, and accessories, as well as her renowned line of signature fragrances. Anna Sui products are sold through her free-standing stores and distributors around the world in over 50 countries. In 2016, Forbes estimated the collective value of Sui's fashion empire at over $600 million.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Mindy Kaling

    Vera Mindy Chokalingam, better known as Mindy Kaling, is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer who, amongst other roles, plays Kelly Kapoor on the NBC, Emmy Award winning sitcom The Office. Kaling is also a co-executive producer and writer of several of the show's episodes. Kaling was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to a Tamil father and Bengali mother from India.

    • Kaling was singled out when she was nominated for a 2008 Image Award in the ‘Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series’ category for ‘The Office’ episode ‘Branch Wars’.
    • Kaling was last seen on the big screen opposite Ben Stiller and Amy Adams in ‘Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.’ She made her film debut as the object of Paul Rudd's unwanted affections in the Judd Apatow directed comedy ‘The 40-Year Old Virgin’.
    • Kaling's other television credits include playing Richard Lewis's assistant on the critically acclaimed and Emmy nominated comedy series ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’. She was also a guest writer on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and in 2007; her standup comedy was featured on ‘Comedy Death-Ray’.
    • Kaling directed The Office webisodes The 3rd Floor. She also directed the season 6 episode titled "Body Language," which marked her television directorial debut. Kaling's contract was set to expire at the end of Season 7. On September 15, 2011, she signed a new contract to stay with the show for Season 8 and was promoted to full Executive Producer status. Her NBC contract included a development deal for a new show (titled "The Mindy Project"), in which she appears as an actor and contributes as a writer. This show makes Kaling the first South Asian-American woman to be the headliner of her own network television show.
    • The Mindy Project (now in its 5th season) received positive reviews from critics, with many highlighting the writing of the series, Kaling's performance, Kaling's unique character and the direction of the series.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Riz Ahmed

    Rizwan "Riz" Ahmed is a British actor and rapper. As an actor, he was initially known for his work in independent films such as The Road to Guantanamo, Shifty, Four Lions, Trishna, and Ill Manors, before his breakout role in Nightcrawler. Since then, he has appeared in the films Una, Jason Bourne, and the first Star Wars anthology film, Rogue One(2016). He also starred in the HBO miniseries The Night Of as Nasir Khan; the show and his performance was critically lauded, earning him a Golden Globe nomination. As a rapper, he is a member of the Swet Shop Boys, and is known for the critically acclaimed hip-hop albums Microscope and Cashmere and his feature on the chart-topping Hamilton Mixtape.

    • He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford University, with a degree in PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), which he has said he found to be a bizarre experience.
    • In 2016, Ahmed played the role of Nasir "Naz" Khan in the HBO miniseries The Night Of, and once again received universal praise for his performance, earning him a Golden Globe nomination. Also that year, he appeared in Rogue One, the first film in the new Star Wars anthology films as Bodhi Rook, a defected imperial pilot.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Gemma Chan

    Gemma Chan is a British film, television and theatre actress and former fashion model. She portrays Charlotte in season four of the Showtime and ITV2 series Secret Diary of a Call Girl; Ruth in Channel 4's Fresh Meat; Mia Bennett in the BBC's Doctor Who "The Waters of Mars" and Soo Lin in Sherlock. She also appeared in Exam and Paramount Pictures' action-thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. She stars in Humans, an AMC/Channel 4 science-fiction drama, which premiered in June 2015.

    • She also appeared in the BAFTA-nominated film Exam and Paramount Pictures' action-thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.
    • Chan played the robot Anita in Humans, an AMC/Channel4 eight-part science-fiction drama. Filming commenced in autumn 2014 with a June 2015 premiere. The second season premiered on 30th October. For her portrayal of Anita, Chan has been nominated for numerous awards. Humans has been a hit in the US too.
    • Chan played the role of Madam Ya Zhou in the smash-hit Fantastic Beasts - the follow up to Harry Potter.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Aziz Ansari

    Aziz Ansari is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his series regular role as Tom Haverford on the NBC show Parks and Recreation. Ansari began his career performing standup comedy in New York City during the summer of 2000 while attending New York University. In 2007, he created and starred in the critically acclaimed MTV sketch comedy show Human Giant, which ran for two seasons. This led to acting roles in feature films, including Funny People; I Love You, Man; Observe and Report; and 30 Minutes or Less.

    • In addition to his acting work, Ansari has continued to work as a standup comedian. He released his debut CD/DVD, entitled Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening, in January 2010 on Comedy Central Records, and still tours nationally between acting commitments.
    • In June 2008, Ansari was announced as the first cast hire for NBC's new comedy from producers of The Office. The show, Parks and Recreation, debuted in April 2009 with Ansari portraying government employee Tom Haverford. Ansari's performance has received notable praise from critics, including Entertainment Weekly naming him one of 2009's "Breakout TV Stars", TV Guide naming him a "Scene Stealer" and Yahoo! TV placing him in the No. 1 spot on its list of "TV MVPS".
    • On June 6, 2010, Ansari hosted the 2010 MTV Movie Awards.
    • Released on Netflix in November 2015, Aziz Ansari’s Master of None almost instantly became one of the year’s most talked-about and well-reviewed shows.
    • His first book, Modern Romance: An Investigation, was released in June 2015.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Shinji Okazaki

    Shinji Okazaki is a Japanese footballer who plays for Leicester City, and for the Japan national football team as a forward. At club level, Okazaki is the most prolific Japanese player in Bundesliga history. Internationally, he is currently the top active Japan national team goalscorer and third all-time in team history with 49 goals. He won the Premier League with Leicester in 2016.

    • On 26 June 2015, Okazaki moved to Premier League side Leicester City for a fee believed to be in the region of £7 million. On 14 March 2016, Okazaki scored the winning goal for Leicester in a league fixture against Newcastle United. The goal was a spectacular overhead strike that won Leicester City the game 1–0 and took them five points clear at the top of the Premier League table.
    • Okazaki is currently the top active Japan national team goalscorer and third all-time in team history with 49 international goals.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Manny Pacquiao

    Emmanuel "Manny" Dapidran Pacquiao is a Filipino professional boxer and politician, currently serving as Senator of the Philippines. In boxing he has held the lineal welterweight title since April 2016, and the WBO welterweight title since November 2016. In 2015 he was the second highest paid athlete in the world.

    • He was named "Fighter of the Decade" for the 2000s by the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA).
    • Pacquiao is generally considered to be one of the greatest boxers of all time as he is the first and only eight-division world champion, having won eleven major world titles, as well as being the first boxer to win the lineal championship in five different weight classes. Pacquiao is also the third boxer in history to win genuine world titles in three of the original eight weight divisions of boxing, also known as the "glamour divisions" (flyweight, featherweight, and welterweight).
    • Pacquiao has hardly had things easy during his unprecedented collection of titles. He beat the best fighters in the division at flyweight, junior feather, featherweight, junior lightweight, junior welterweight, and now welterweight. No fighter has ever dominated such a wide range of weight classes.
    • Pacquiao has generated approximately 19.2 million in pay-per-view buys and $1.2 billion in revenue from his 23 PPV bouts.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Shinji Kawaga

    Shinji Kagawa is a Japanese professional footballer who plays for German club Borussia Dortmund and the Japan national team. Kagawa began his professional career in his homeland with Cerezo Osaka before joining Borussia Dortmund in 2010. After two years with Dortmund, Kagawa signed for Manchester United on a four-year contract. Two years later, he returned to Dortmund. A goal-scoring midfielder, he is known for his "vision, technique, movement and deft passing."Kagawa holds the records for most appearances and goals by a Japanese player in UEFA club competitions.

    • From 2012 to 2013, he won 26 consecutive decisions, which broke an NPB record.
    • On 2 March 2013, Kagawa scored his first hat-trick for United and also became the first Asian player to score a hat-trick in the Premier League, in his team's 4–0 home win against Norwich City.
    • On 31 August 2014, Kagawa officially returned to his former club, Borussia Dortmund, signing a contract until 30 June 2018.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Kei Nishikori

    Kei Nishikori is a Japanese professional tennis player, currently ranked world No. 5 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). He is the only male Japanese tennis player ever to be ranked inside the top 10 in singles. He has won 11 singles titles and was runner-up at the 2014 US Open, making him the first male player representing an Asian country to reach a Grand Slam singles final. He also reached the semi-finals at the US Open in 2016. He also became the first man from Asia to qualify for the ATP World Tour Finals and reached the semi-finals in 2014 and 2016. He first reached his career-high singles ranking of world No. 4 in March 2015.

    • On August 30, 2008, he became the first Japanese player to reach the round of 16 at the US Open in 71 years, when he beat fourth seed David Ferrer in five sets in what was considered one of the tournament's major upsets.
    • Nishikori made his third successive appearance at the year-end championships after becoming the fifth player to qualify for the 2016 ATP World Tour Finals. He won his first match, upsetting third seed, Stan Wawrinka in straight sets 6–2, 6–3 before losing his other two round-robin matches to Andy Murray and Marin Cilic respectively, both in three sets. Having done enough to nevertheless make the semifinals however, he was then defeated by a resurgent Novak Djokovic in straight sets, ending his season with a singles ranking of world No. 5 for both the second time in his career and in the past three years as well.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Lydia Ko

    Lydia Ko (born 24 April 1997) is a Korean-born New Zealand professional golfer who became the No. 1 ranked woman professional golfer on 2 February 2015 at 17 years 9 months 8 days of age, making her the youngest player of either gender to be ranked No. 1 in professional golf. She is the current No. 1 golfer. Upon winning The Evian Championship in France on the 13 September 2015, she became the youngest woman, at age 18 years, 4 months and 20 days, to win a major championship. Her closing round of 63 was a record lowest final round in the history of women's golf majors.

    • Since turning professional in 2014, Ko has career winnings of $7,341,477 as of 31 October 2016. Additionally, she is the first LPGA Tour player to win at least $2,000,000 in each of her first three full seasons on Tour.
    • She became the youngest person ever to win a professional golf tour event and youngest person ever to win an LPGA Tour event. At the Rio Olympics in August 2016 Ko won the silver medal for women's golf. As of 10 October 2016, Lydia has won 14 LPGA Tour titles in her young career. That tally means only 38 LPGA Tour players have ever won more Tour titles than Lydia Ko, at the ripe old age of 19 years, 5 months and 16 days.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Sania Mirza

    Sania Mirza is an Indian professional tennis player who is currently ranked No. 1 in the women's doubles rankings. From 2003 until her retirement from singles in 2013, she was ranked by the Women's Tennis Association as India's No.1 player, both in singles and doubles. Throughout her career, Mirza has established herself as the most successful female Indian tennis player ever and one of the highest-paid and high-profile athletes in the country.

    • She is the highest-ranked female player ever from India, peaking at world No. 27 in singles in mid-2007; however, a major wrist injury forced her to give up her singles career and focus on the doubles circuit, where she is currently ranked No. 1.
    • Mirza was named one of the "50 Heroes of Asia" by Time in October 2005. In March 2010, The Economic Times named Mirza in the list of the "33 women who made India proud". She was appointed as the UN Women's Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia during the event held to mark the International Day To End Violence Against Women on 25 November 2013. She was named in Time magazine's 2016 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Jason Day

    Jason Dayis an Australian professional golfer (whose mother Dening is from the Philippines) and PGA Tour member. He is the current World Number 1 in the World Golf Ranking, having first achieved the ranking in September 2015. Day first broke into the world's top ten in June 2011, rising to world number nine after his runner-up finish at the U.S. Open. In February 2014, Day won his first WGC title, the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and would win it for a second time in 2016. With his 2016 win, he joined Tiger Woods and Geoff Ogilvy as the only multiple winners of the WGC Match Play. He went on to win his first major tournament at the 2015 PGA Championship.

    • Jason Day set a new record becoming the first player in history to finish at 20-under-par in a major.
    • As of July 2016, Day has earned over $33 million in prize money on the PGA Tour.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Ang Lee

    Ang Lee is a Taiwanese-born American film director, screenwriter and producer. Lee's earlier films, such as The Wedding Banquet, Pushing Hands, and Eat Drink Man Woman explored the relationships and conflicts between tradition and modernity, Eastern and Western. Lee also deals with repressed, hidden emotions in many of his films, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Hulk; and Brokeback Mountain. Lee's insight into the human heart has allowed his films to transcend cultural and linguistic barriers to speak to audiences all over the world.

    • Lee has won the Academy Award for Best Director twice, first for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and most recently for Life of Pi (2012).
    • He also won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). He is the first person of Asian descent to win an Oscar, Golden Globe, and BAFTA for Best Director, and is the only director to win both the Golden Bear and Golden Lion multiple times. In 2013, Ang Lee began development on the project with a screenplay written by Peter Morgan, but later put it on hold in 2014 in order to make Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. In December 2015, it was announced that the project, tentatively titled Thrilla in Manila, was indeed his next project once he finished his work on Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. David Oyelowo and Ray Fisher are reportedly Lee’s top choices for the leading roles.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Aamir Khan

    Aamir Khan is an Indian film actor, director, screenwriter, producer and television presenter. Through his successful career in Hindi films, Khan has established himself as one of the most popular and influential actors of Indian cinema and is known by the name Mr Perfectionist. He is the recipient of numerous awards and nominations, including four National Film Awards and seven Filmfare Awards, and was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Shri in 2003 and the Padma Bhushan in 2010.

    • In 2001, Khan started a production company, whose first release, Lagaan, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and earned him a National Film Award for Best Popular Film and two more Filmfare Awards (Best Actor and Best Film).
    • Khan's greatest commercial successes came with the thriller Ghajini (2008), the dramedy 3 Idiots (2009), and the adventure film Dhoom 3 (2013), all of which held records for being the highest grossing Bollywood film of all-time. In addition to acting, Khan is a humanitarian and has participated and spoken out for various social causes, some of which have sparked political controversy. He has created and hosted the television talk show Satyamev Jayate, through which he highlights sensitive social issues in India.
    • In December 2016, Khan will appear as a wrestler in Nitesh Tiwari's Dangal, which he has also produced. This will be followed by Khan making a guest appearance in Secret Superstar. Khan has also committed to starring in Thugs of Hindostan with Amitabh Bachchan. This will be directed by Dhoom 3 director Vijay Krishna Acharya.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Fan Bingbing

    Fan Bingbing is a Chinese actress, television producer and pop singer. She topped the Forbes China Celebrity 100 list in 2013 and 2014, after ranking in the top 10 every year since 2006.

    • Fan rose to fame in Asia in 1998-1999 with the mega-hit TV series My Fair Princess. Since then she has received awards from the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards, Eurasia International Film Festival, Tokyo International Film Festival, Beijing College Student Film Festival and Huading Awards for films like The Matrimony (2007), Lost in Beijing (2007), Buddha Mountain (2011) and Double Xposure (2012). Fan has participated in many foreign-language films, such as the French film Stretch (2011), the Korean film My Way (2011) and the Hollywood blockbuster X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). She has also been called a fashion icon due to frequent appearances on the red carpet, movie premieres, and fashion shows.
    • On May 31, Barbie announced the launch of the Fan Bingbing Celebrity Specialty doll in Shanghai. Fan becomes the first actress from China to be invited to join the Barbie global celebrity Hall of Fame.
    • Fan joined in the opening ceremony of 2013 Cannes Film Festival premiere, wearing a custom Louis Vuitton gown, and that was the first time the French fashion house had created a gown especially for an Asian actress.In December, Fan posed for Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2014 ad campaign.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Om Puri

    Om Rajesh Puri OBE is an Indian actor who has appeared in mainstream commercial Indian and British films, Independent films and art films. His credits also include appearances in American films. He has been awarded Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of India.

    • Puri had a cameo in the highly acclaimed film Gandhi (1982, directed by Richard Attenborough).
    • In the mid-1990s, he became known internationally by starring in many British films such as My Son the Fanatic (1997), East Is East (1999) and The Parole Officer (2001). He appeared in Hollywood films including City of Joy (1992), opposite Patrick Swayze; Wolf (1994) alongside Jack Nicholson; and The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) opposite Val Kilmer. In 2007, he appeared as General Zia-ul-Haq in Charlie Wilson's War, which stars Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.
    • In 2014, he appeared opposite Helen Mirren in the comedy-drama The Hundred-Foot Journey.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Rob Schneider

    Rob Schneider is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and director. A stand-up comic and veteran of the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, he went on to a successful career in feature films, including starring roles in the comedy films Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, The Hot Chick, The Benchwarmers, and Grown Ups.

    • Schneider's maternal grandmother was a Filipina who met and married his grandfather, a white American army private, while he was stationed in the Philippines
    • Schneider is featured in the video release The Bad Boys of Saturday Night Live, along with colleagues Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Chris Farley.
    • After leaving SNL, Schneider played supporting roles in a series of movies including Surf Ninjas, Judge Dredd, The Beverly Hillbillies, Demolition Man and Down Periscope. He also appeared in a recurring part on the TV series Coach. In 1996, he co-starred in the NBC sit-com Men Behaving Badly, an American take on the hit British series of the same name. The U.S. version ran for two seasons.
    • He has also starred in hit movies such as I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry, Big Stan, Grown Ups. In 2015 he starred alongside Adam Sandler once more in The Ridiculous 6.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Deepika Padukone

    Deepika Padukone is an Indian film actress. She is one of the highest-paid actresses in India and is cited in the media as one of the nation's most popular and attractive personalities. Padukone has established a career in Hindi films, and is the recipient of several awards, including three Filmfare Awards.

    • As of October 2016, Padukone completed filming for her first project in a Hollywood action film xXx: The Return of Xander Cage—in which she plays the lead female role opposite Vin Diesel. In addition, Padukone will collaborate with Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Ranveer Singh for a third time in the historical drama Padmavati, in which she will play the eponymous queen opposite Singh and Shahid Kapoor. Alongside her acting career, Padukone participates in stage shows, has written columns for an Indian newspaper, is a prominent celebrity endorser for brands and products, and is vocal about issues such as feminism and depression. She has designed her own line of clothing for women and is the founder of The Live Love Laugh Foundation, which creates awareness on mental health in India.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Dev Patel

    Dev Patel is a British actor of Indian origin. He rose to prominence for his critically acclaimed performance as Jamal Malik in Danny Boyle's drama film Slumdog Millionaire (2008), for which he was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance in a supporting role and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

    • Since 2008, Patel has acted in a variety of roles, receiving a NAACP Image Award nomination Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his work as Neal Sampat on the HBO television series The Newsroom (2012–2014) and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture for his role as Sonny Kapoor in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012). He has also appeared in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2014), M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender (2010) and The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015). In 2016, he earned rave reviews for his performance as Saroo Brierley in Lion, which premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Priyanka Chopra

    Priyanka Chopra is an Indian film actress and singer, and the winner of the Miss World pageant of 2000. Through her film career, she has become one of Bollywood's highest-paid actresses and one of the most popular and high-profile celebrities in India. Chopra is cited as the world's sexiest Asian woman, as well as one of the most fashionable Indian celebrities, by various media outlets. She has received numerous accolades, including a National Film Award for Best Actress and Filmfare Awards in four categories.

    • In 2000, her mother entered her into the Femina Miss India contest, in which she finished second and took the Miss India World title. She was then entered into the Miss World pageant, where she was crowned Miss World 2000 and Miss World Continental Queen of Beauty—Asia & Oceania, becoming the fifth Indian to win the competition.
    • She received critical acclaim for the role of a troubled model in the 2008 drama Fashion, which marked a significant turning point in her career. She later gained recognition for her versatility in portraying a range of unconventional characters, including an autistic woman in the 2012 romantic comedy Barfi!, and a boxer in the 2014 biographical sports drama Mary Kom.
    • In 2015, she began starring as Alex Parrish on the ABC drama Quantico, becoming the first South Asian woman to headline an American network drama series.
    • Chopra has several projects at the various stages of production. She is currently filming the second season of Quantico in New York City. She is producing a third film under her production company — the Punjabi film Sarvann, which is scheduled to release in December 2016. Chopra has completed her work on Seth Gordon's action comedy Baywatch, in which she will play the main antagonist opposite Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) and Zac Efron.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Demis Hassabis

    Demis Hassabis is a British artificial intelligence researcher, neuroscientist, computer game designer, entrepreneur, and world-class games player. Demis Hassabis was born to a Greek Cypriot father and a Chinese Singaporean mother and grew up in North London. After running technology companies for several years, Hassabis returned to academia to obtain his PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from University College London (UCL) in 2009 and continued his neuroscience and artificial intelligence research as a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, UCL and as a visiting scientist jointly at MIT and Harvard.

    • Working in the field of autobiographical memory and amnesia, he co-authored several influential papers published in Nature, Science, Neuron and PNAS. His most highly cited paper to date, published in PNAS, showed systematically for the first time that patients with damage to their hippocampus, known to cause amnesia, were surprisingly also unable to imagine themselves in new experiences. The finding established a link between the constructive process of imagination and the reconstructive process of episodic memory recall. Based on this work and a follow-up fMRI study, Hassabis developed a new theoretical account of the episodic memory system identifying scene construction, the generation and online maintenance of a complex and coherent scene, as a key process underlying both memory recall and imagination. This work received widespread coverage in the mainstream media and was listed in the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of the year in any field by the journal Science.
    • In 2010, Hassabis co-founded DeepMind Technologies, a London-based machine learning AI startup, with Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman. DeepMind’s mission is to ‘solve intelligence’ and then use intelligence ‘to solve everything else’. More concretely, DeepMind aims to meld insights from neuroscience and machine learning with new developments in computing hardware to unlock increasingly powerful general-purpose learning algorithms that will work towards the creation of an artificial general intelligence (AGI).
    • DeepMind’s early investors included several high-profile tech entrepreneurs. In 2014, Google purchased DeepMind for £400 million, leading to its rechristening as ‘Google DeepMind’, although it has remained an independent entity based in London.
    • Demis is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts aswell as University College London. In 2016 Evening Standard named him the 6th most influential person in London after the Mayor, PM and Royal Family.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Yoshinori Ohsumi

    Yoshinori Ohsumi is a Japanese cell biologist specializing in autophagy, the process that cells use to destroy and recycle cellular components. Ohsumi is a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology's Institute of Innovative Research. He received the Kyoto Prize for Basic Science in 2012, the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and the 2017 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy.

    • In 2016 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy". He is the 25th Japanese person to win a Nobel Prize. Ohsumi's spouse Mariko, a Professor of Teikyo University of Science, collaborated on his research. She is a co-author of many academic papers with him.
    • Wikipedia link

  • Charles Kao

    Charles Kuen Kao, KBE is a Chinese-born Hong Kong, American and British electrical engineer and physicist who pioneered in the development and use of fiber optics in telecommunications. Kao, known as the "Godfather of Broadband", "Father of Fiber Optics" or "Father of Fiber Optic Communications", was jointly awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for "groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication". Kao holds multiple citizenship of Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States.

    • On October 6, 2009, Kao was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the study of the transmission of light in optical fibers and for fiber communication,said: "I am absolutely speechless and never expected such an honour".
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Takaaki Kajita

    Takaaki Kajita is a Japanese physicist, known for neutrino experiments at the Kamiokande and its successor, Super-Kamiokande.In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Canadian physicist Arthur B. McDonald.

    • In 1998, Kajita's team at the Super-Kamiokande found that when cosmic rays hit the Earth's atmosphere, the resulting neutrinos switched between two flavours before they reached the detector under Mt. Kamioka. This discovery helped prove the existence of neutrino oscillation and that neutrinos have mass.
    • He was awarded the 2015 Fundamental Physics Prize.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

    Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran is a neurologist best known for his work in the fields of behavioural neurology and psychophysics. He is the former Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition, and is currently a Professor in the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego.

    • Ramachandran initially obtained an M.D. at Stanley Medical College in Madras, India, and subsequently obtained a Ph.D. from Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. Ramachandran’s early work was on visual perception but he is best known for his experiments in behavioural neurology which, despite their apparent simplicity, have had a profound impact on the way we think about the brain.
    • Ramachandran has been elected for two fellowships at All Souls College, Oxford, and awarded the Henry Dale Medal by the Great Britain Royal Institution, London . He gave the 2003 BBC Reith Lectures and was conferred the title of Padma Bhushan by the President of India in 2007
    • He has been called “The Marco Polo of neuroscience” by Richard Dawkins and "the modern Paul Broca" by Eric Kandel. Newsweek magazine named him a member of "The Century Club", one of the "hundred most prominent people to watch" in the 21st century.
    • Ramachandran has published over 180 papers in scientific journals. 20 of these have appeared in Nature, and others have appeared in Science, Nature Neuroscience, Perception and Vision Research. He is author of the acclaimed book Phantoms in the Brain that has been translated into nine languages and formed the basis for a two-part series on BBC-4 TV (UK) and a 1-hour PBS special in the USA. He is the editor of the Encyclopedia of the Human Brain (2002), and is co-author of the bi-monthly "Illusions" column in Scientific American Mind
    • Ramachandran’s work with patients at the University of California, San Diego has led to one of the most effective treatments for chronic phantom-limb pain and to a new therapy for paralysis resulting from stroke. It has also provided suggestive insights into the physiological cause of such mystifying syndromes as synesthesia and autism.
    • Wikipedia Link

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