2023 Kempegowda award winners: Know more about entrepreneur Nithin Kamath, golfer Aditi Ashok, Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology

A brief look at the profile of the three winners of 2023 Kempegowda International Award

1. Nithin Kamath, founder and CEO of fintech firm Zerodha

Nitin Kamath also holds the title of India’s ‘youngest billionaire’. (File photo)

Nithin Kamath started out as a below-average student in high school and is now one of Forbes India’s ‘Wizards of Dalal Street’. Born and raised in Bengaluru, he discovered trading at the age of 17 and took loans to build his trading account. From there he became a franchisee for Reliance Money where he started a formal advisory business. In 2010 he and his brother Nikhil hustled enough money to start ‘Zerodha’ – a platform that brought revolutionary ideas to the business world and transformed financial services.
By introducing ‘flat fees’, traders were able to reserve 90 per cent of their brokerage charges. Zerodha also kept this scheme uniform for all their clients, compared to other platforms that gave “opaque offerings” for different groups of clients.
“It isn’t about the big beating the small anymore, but the fast beating the slow, as we have proven. Having a nimble organisational structure focused on creating value for customers without chasing revenue, growth, or valuations, is our big moat, our secret sauce,” Nithin Kamath has famously stated.

In 2014 Kamath was awarded the ‘Emerging Entrepreneur Award’ conferred by the Confederation of Indian Industry. He also holds the title of India’s ‘youngest billionaire’.

2. Aditi Ashok, international golfer

Aditi Ashok is currently ranked 62nd in the world. (File photo)

Aditi Ashok has been a trailblazer for women’s golf in India since 2016 when she won the Ladies European Tour title and has been a regular on the Ladies Professional Golf Tour.

While Aditi had been playing golf since she was a five-year-old in Bengaluru and was on the pro-circuit in Europe since 2016, she really caught the attention of India at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics when she narrowly missed out on a medal while finishing fourth in the women’s individual event. She was ranked 200 in the world at the time and finished two strokes behind the winner Nelly Korda of the US with 269 points and a 15 under par score. She had ended 2019 with two back-to-back second-place finishes on the European Tour. She is currently ranked 62nd in the world.

3. Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, Bengaluru

The primary hospital for cardiac care in the government sector in Bengaluru has 1,600 beds and has branches in Mysuru, Kalaburgi and Rajajinagar. In 2015, it became the only public health institution in the country to have received National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) accreditation. It was reaccredited in 2018.

The hospital boasts of performing 42,865 Cath Lab procedures in 2021, the highest in the country, treating 53,836 in-patients of which 25,000 were treated at subsidised cost in the same year.
During the Florence Nightingale award ceremony early this month, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah acknowledged the contribution of Jayadeva hospital.

“All politicians are treated at Jaydeva hospital. It is a model. Quality, cleanliness and discipline persist in Jayadevah. It is possible to create the same system in other government hospitals as well. All that is needed for this is honesty and diligence,” he had said.

In its first edition in 2022, the Kempegowda International Award for global achievers from Bengaluru was given to three veterans considered to be giants in their respective spheres. They were S M Krishna, now 91, who had donned the roles as Karnataka chief minister, Maharashtra governor and minister of external affairs; N R Narayana Murthy, now 76, the founder and early force behind the IT giant Infosys; Prakash Padukone, now 68, the badminton maestro.

(With inputs from Judah Mathew Oommen and Madhumita Sharma)