A fitting tribute to a much-missed mentor

With the passing of B T Seshadri, former Executive Director of Syngenta Foundation India (SFI) in June 2020, we lost a leader and a friend. SFI has commemorated his life with an annual award. It recently honoured the first four winners.  

Fittingly for a man who had been a fine mentor, the accolades recognize leading examples of related behaviour in our Agri-Entrepreneur (AE) program. There are awards for AE Mentors, Faculty Members and Project Leads. The first award ceremony  took place recently on the anniversary of B T Seshadri’s death. The online event was attended among others by his widow and children, and by Prakash Apte, Chairman of Syngenta India Ltd. 

The 2021 winners were Best AE Mentors Ashok Kadam (Gold) and Gerald Minj (Silver), Amol Deshmukh (Best Project Lead) and Akash Mahalle of eSurya (Best Faculty).

AE Mentors provide support to an AE through his or her journey as a first-time entrepreneur. Project Leads manage the Mentors. Faculty members instruct the AEs during their accredited training program. 

“These awards recognize outstanding performances during the financial year 2020-21”, comments SFI Director Baskar Reddy. “We chose the winners on the basis of peer-to-peer ratings combined with feedback from their managers.” All four receive valuable cash prizes and certificates of appreciation. 

SFI plans to present the next B T Seshadri Memorial Awards on June 15th 2022.