Sri Vijaya Puram, Aug. 14: The Andaman and Nicobar Administration has launched a series of awareness-cum-orientation workshops across the Islands to encourage students, youth and emerging digital creators to participate in the Gems of India Challenge 2026, a national initiative designed to promote authentic digital storytelling on India’s culture, heritage and tourism.
As part of the outreach programme, awareness workshops were conducted at Tagore Government College of Education (TGCE) and the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), Garacharma, in Sri Vijaya Puram. The sessions aimed to familiarise participants with the challenge and guide them through the registration and content submission process.
Resource persons from the Information, Publicity and Tourism Department and My Bharat introduced students to the Gems of India Challenge, launched by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. The initiative seeks to identify, nurture and promote grassroots digital creators from across the country.
During the one-hour workshops held at both institutions, participants received detailed information about the objectives of the challenge, the registration process through the MyWAVES platform and the procedure for submitting digital content online. The sessions also included demonstrations of online registration and content submission.
Students actively interacted with the resource persons, who responded to queries and explained the participation process in detail.
The workshops are being organised in collaboration with the Department of Education, the Information Technology Department, Prasar Bharati, My Bharat and the District Administrations. The initiative is intended to provide practical guidance to prospective participants before they submit their entries.
The Gems of India Challenge 2026 encourages creators to produce authentic digital stories highlighting the culture, heritage, tourism, traditions, history and unique achievements of their respective districts. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands have been selected as one of the six States and Union Territories participating in the pilot phase of the initiative.
Under the challenge guidelines, participants must create and upload original digital content with a duration of one to three minutes through the MyWAVES section of the WAVES OTT platform. The submission window for the pilot phase opened on August 1 and will remain open until August 31, 2026.
The Administration has invited students, young people, aspiring filmmakers, vloggers, photographers, storytellers and other creative individuals from the Islands to participate in the challenge and use the platform to present the distinctive identity, heritage and tourism potential of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands before a national audience.
