An Indian app developer has been given an entrepreneurial award in part for her development of crypto-related software, despite the country still being at odds with the technology. Harshita Arora was given the Bal Shakti Puraskar 2020 award by Indian president Narendra Modi himself for her “excellence in the field of innovation”, with crypto anti-scam and price checker apps part of the reason for the award.
I am delighted that the very talented Harshita Arora has been conferred the Bal Shakti Puraskar 2020!
She has been focussing on a wide range of sectors. Her passion towards science, technology and human welfare are clearly visible. pic.twitter.com/DgpZaXbViQ
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 24, 2020
Kumari Harshita Arora Gets Busy with Blockchain
Kumari Harshita Arora was among a raft of winners announced by Modi on Friday, with her focus on “a wide range of sectors” praised. In particular, Arora developed an app to safeguard crypto investors from scams as well as a crypto price tracker portfolio management app.
Outside of blockchain, Arora created Food AI, an app that recognizes a variety of foods from a single picture, and CellCount, an app that does the same with cell numbers from a single image. She also assisted with creating the world’s first robot lawyer, DoNotPay. It Is fair to say, then, that this award is extremely well deserved.
A Positive Sign for India?
Arora’s being awarded in part for crypto-related activities is an interesting development given India’s struggle to get to grips with the legality of cryptocurrency itself. Its dealings with the revolutionary monetary system began in 2013 when it warned against the risks of investing in cryptocurrencies, since when it has virtually banned all crypto activities without actually doing so.
The Indian government formed a working group to form a wide-ranging policy on the matter back in 2017, but several deadlines have been missed with regard to finalizing the policy, forcing the Reserve Bank of India to come out last week and confirm, once again, that cryptocurrencies are not technically illegal. Hopefully the fact that young crypto entrepreneurs are being rewarded for their efforts means that a softening in stance is on the cards for the cryptographically confused country.
