(13 November 2007 5:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Digital cinema provider UFO Moviez has won the 'Global Entrepolis at Singapore Award 2007' (GES Award).

The award honours the 'Technopreneur of the Year' in the Asia-Pacific region. It is co-organized by the Wall Street Journal Asia in association with the Global Entrepolis@Singapore.

UFO Moviez vice chairman Raaja Kanwar receives the Global Entrepolis at Singapore Award 2007

This time around the awards received 265 entries from applicants in 16 countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region.

UFO Moviez was short listed as one of the 6 finalists and eventually won the award.

UFO Moviez vice chairman Raaja Kanwar said, "This award is a reaffirmation of what we have always believed in - empowering the global cinema industry digitally, while being environment friendly and also combating piracy."

Founder and executive director UFO Moviez Sanjay Gaikwad said, "The challenge for us lay in introducing an untried and untested technology in India with no previous benchmarks. Not only just the technology part of it, we even had to invent a new pay per show business model which was unheard of in the Indian context."

The selecting criteria for the GES Award included: demonstrating exploitation of technology in their business or products; having good potential to be a global leader/market leader; exhibiting growth in past years (operating profit, size, and market share); showing a sustainable business model and simultaneously be commercially viable.

In the past, SiBiono GeneTech from China was given the GES Award 2006 while Hong Kong Broadband Network Ltd. (HKBN) has won the 2005 Global Entrepolis @ Singapore Award for its ultra-fast residential broadband service.