MUMBAI:
With an aim to be the most preferred bank for the youth, the country’s largest lender State Bank of India, announced the launch of ‘YONO 20 under Twenty’ to recognize and reward young achievers below 20 years of age across 10 diverse fields. YONO – India’s first and only comprehensive digital platform that offers lifestyle and banking services has increasingly gained traction amongst India’s youth–In line with this, SBI plans to honour 20 young achievers in 10 categories such as sustainability, performing arts, acting, entrepreneurship or innovation, sports, global Indian, disability champion among others.
SBI kicked off the YONO 20 Under Twenty initiative in Oct 2018 by identifying 100 young individuals who have gone way beyond enjoying their teen age and visualized changing the world. The list of 200 boiled down to 60 with 30 male and 30 female nominees. These nominees were short listed by an esteemed jury panel of 8 eminent personalities including Bollywood actresses Soha Ali Khan and Dia Mirza, Sports journalist and author Boria Majumdar, Sashi Sreedharan, MD, Microsoft India, Dilip Asbe, MD & CEO, NPCI, Mallika Dua, Social Media Influencer, etc.
The entire process was managed independently by audit firm KPMG. Jury members shortlisted three names (3 males and 3 females) under each category. Eventually, one winner will be picked from each category. Winners will be decided by an online public voting process that will open from January 14 and closes on January 27, 2019. People can vote for their favourite nominees by logging on to www.yonosbi20under20.com
The 60 nominees for this grand event include names like Bollywood actors Faisal Khan, Zaira Wasim, athlete Hima Das, cricketer Prithvi Shaw, global Indian Sparsh Shah, to name a few. Winners will be felicitated and conferred with the awards at a grand ceremony on February 04, 2019 in Bengaluru.
Arijit Basu, MD, Corporate Client Group & IT, SBI said, “YONO 20 Under Twenty is SBI’s endeavor to strengthen bank’s appeal and connect with the youth and we are very excited to host this unique concept. We believe these winners would positively influence, encourage and motivate the youth of India to dream big and become great innovators. It is a matter of pride for SBI to celebrate these young achievers who can make India proud. Achievers are not born with everything magical, it is the result of their effort, ideas and faith that makes them successful and we at SBI would like to congratulate them and wish them all the very best for their inspiring work and making India proud”.
YONO has recently turned one and in the past 1 year, it has witnessed an over whelming response from its users purely on the back of its unique and relevant value proposition. The YONO app downloads have touched the 1.5 crore mark. In October 2018 SBI also launched the YONO Shopping Festival (which was trending tops on Twitter), the first ever bank to come up with a shopping festival.
