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 8th Asian Awards. Please click on those categories you feel that 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 is fine).
  • 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 7th Awards.

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

  • 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 July 2013, he was the second richest man in Asia with a personal wealth of US$25.0 billion.
    • 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

  • 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

  • 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 $100 million. Kapoor operates independently from any gallery although he has a longstanding working relationship with Lisson Gallery in London.
    • 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

  • 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’.
    • Most recently, 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 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

  • Mishal Husain

    Mishal Husain is a British news presenter for the BBC, who appears on Today, BBC World News and BBC Weekend News. She was previously a presenter on HARDtalk and BBC Breakfast.

    • Husain gained her first experience of journalism at the age of 18, spending three months as a city reporter in Islamabad, Pakistan, at the English-language newspaper The News. Then, while at university, she did several stints at the BBC as work experience. Her first job was at Bloomberg Television in London from 1996, where she was a producer and sometime presenter. Two years later, in 1998, she joined the BBC as a junior producer in the newsroom and for the News 24 channel, and then in the Economics and Business Unit. Within a few months she moved in front of the camera and has since worked in a variety of roles: on the daily Breakfast programme, on Asia Business Report (based in Singapore), and as a presenter of business news on both BBC World News and the BBC News Channel. From September 2002 she was the corporation's Washington correspondent, serving as the main news anchor through the buildup to the invasion of Iraq and during the war.
    • In 2011, Husain hosted Impact on BBC World News, but in spring and summer 2011 she was engaged on making a documentary on the Arab Spring, for airing in the autumn of 2011. She presents the Sunday evening editions of the BBC Weekend News on BBC One. On 8 May 2010, she published an autobiographical essay in The Independent based on a nostalgia trip to the UAE. Husain is also a relief presenter of the BBC News at Six and BBC News at Ten. She has occasionally presented Newsnight on BBC Two.
    • On 16 July 2013, the BBC's Director-General Lord Hall announced that Husain was to become a presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme in the autumn. She continues to present the Sunday evening editions of the BBC Weekend News on BBC One and on occasions on BBC World News and the BBC News Channel.
    • On 27 November 2017, she recorded an interview on behalf of all journalists with the newly engaged Prince Harry and Megan Markle.
    • Husain is an ambassador for the charity Mosaic, which helps young people from deprived communities to realise their talents and potential.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Masahiro Tanaka

    Masahiro Tanaka is a Japanese professional baseball starting pitcher for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB). From 2007 through 2013, he played for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in Nippon Professional Baseball's (NPB) Pacific League.

    • From 2012 to 2013, he won 26 consecutive decisions, which broke an NPB record.
    • On January 22, 2014, Tanaka signed a seven-year contract worth $155 million with the Yankees. The contract contains an opt-out clause after the fourth year and a full no-trade clause.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Ichiro Suzuki

    Ichiro Suzuki is a Japanese-born professional baseball outfielder who currently plays for the New York Yankees. Originally a player in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), Ichiro moved to the United States in 2001 to play in Major League Baseball for the Seattle Mariners, with whom he spent 11 seasons. Ichiro has established a number of batting records, including MLB's single-season record for hits with 262. He had 10 consecutive 200-hit seasons, the longest streak by any player, surpassing Wee Willie Keeler's streak of eight.Between his career hits in Japan's and America's major leagues, Ichiro stands at third place all-time in top-flight hits, trailing only Pete Rose and Ty Cobb.

    • Ichiro is the first MLB player to enter the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame (The Golden Players Club). He is a ten-time All-Star and won the 2007 All-Star Game MVP Award for a three-hit performance that included the event's first-ever inside-the-park home run. Ichiro won a Gold Glove Award in each of his first ten years in the major leagues, and has had seven hitting streaks of 20 or more games, with a high of 27.
    • On December 19, 2012, Suzuki finalized a $13 million deal for two years with the Yankees.
    • On August 21, 2013, Ichiro collected his 4,000th professional career hit with a single off Toronto Blue Jays pitcher R.A. Dickey; becoming the seventh player in professional baseball history known to have reached the mark.
    • Ichiro's agent Tony Attanasio described his client's status: "When you mail Ichiro something from the States, you only have to use that name on the address and he gets it [in Japan]. He's that big."
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Manny Pacquiao

    Emmanuel "Manny" Dapidran Pacquiao is a Filipino professional boxer and politician. He is the first and only eight-division world champion, in which he has won ten world titles, as well as the first to win the lineal championship in four different weight classes. He is also 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).
    • During a time when boxing has struggled to provide compelling superstars that transcend the game, Manny Pacquiao has filled the void and become a saviour of the sport. He came along at precisely the right time. His resume, spanning 9 divisions, is difficult to ignore and his popularity in his native Philippines might surpass the national stardom of any fighter in the history of the sport.
    • 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.
    • Aside from boxing, Pacquiao has participated in acting, music recording and politics. In May 2010, Pacquiao was elected to the House of Representatives in the 15th Congress of the Philippines, representing the province of Sarangani.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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

  • 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.
    • In 2017 she starred in her first Hollywood film, Baywatch alonside Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Rajinikanth

    Shivaji Rao Gaekwad, known by his mononymous stage name Rajinikanth, is an Indian film actor, who works primarily in Tamil cinema. He began acting in plays while working in the Bangalore Transport Service as a bus conductor. In 1973, he joined the Madras Film Institute to pursue a diploma in acting. Following his debut in K. Balachander's Tamil drama Apoorva Raagangal (1975), his acting career commenced with a brief phase of portraying antagonistic characters in Tamil films.

    • After earning ₹26 crore (US$8.6 million in 2016) for his role in Sivaji (2007), he was the highest paid actor in Asia after Jackie Chan at the time. While working in other regional film industries of India, Rajinikanth has also appeared in the cinemas of other nations, including the American film Bloodstone (1988). As of 2014, Rajinikanth has won six Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, four Best Actor Awards and two Special Awards for Best Actor — and a Filmfare Best Tamil Actor Award. In addition to acting, he has also worked as a producer and screenwriter. Apart from his film career, he is also a philanthropist, spiritualist, and serves as an influence in Dravidian politics.
    • The Government of India has honoured him with the Padma Bhushan in 2000 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2016 for his contributions to the arts. At the 45th International Film Festival of India, he was conferred with the "Centenary Award for Indian Film Personality of the Year".
    • Rajinikanth has often been referred to as the most popular film actor in South India by the media and audiences.In 2015, a film about his fandom, For the Love of a Man, premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival.
    • After opening his first official Twitter account in 2014, Rajinikanth received over 210,000 followers within 24 hours, which according to The Economic Times was deemed by social media research firms as the fastest rate of followers for any Indian celebrity, as well as among the top-10 in the world.
    • Rajinikanth announced entry into politics on 31 Dec 2017 and confirmed that his newly formed party will contest in assembly elections in 2021 from all 234 constituencies in Tamilnadu state. His party, he said, would resign if it was unable to fullfill its electoral promises within three years of coming into power.
    • Wikipedia Link

  • Shinya Yamanaka

    Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese physician and researcher of adult stem cells. He serves as the director of Center for iPS Cell Research and Application and a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyoto University; as a senior investigator at the UCSF-affiliated J. David Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, California; and as a professor of anatomy at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Yamanaka is also the current president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR).

    • By introducing the genes for four factors that turn genes on and off, he induced the skin cells of adult mice to become like embryonic stem cells, which he called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. This iPS cell technology represents an entirely new platform for fundamental studies of developmental biology. Rather than using disease models made in yeast, flies, mice or other animals, iPS cells can be taken from patients with a specific disease. As a result, they contain a complete set of the genes that resulted in that disease—representing the potential of an almost perfect disease model for studying disease development, new drugs and treatments.
    • He received the Wolf Prize in Medicine in 2011 with Rudolf Jaenisch; the Millennium Technology Prize in 2012 together with Linus Torvalds. In 2012 he and John Gurdon were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery that mature cells can be converted to stem cells. In 2013 he was awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his work.
    • Dr. Yamanaka’s current research focuses on ways to generate cells resembling embryonic stem cells by reprogramming somatic, or skin, cells. He seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie pluripotency and the rapid proliferation of embryonic stem cells—they can become any type of cell in the body—and to identify the factors that induce reprogramming.
    • 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

  • 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

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

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

Remember, 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.

 

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