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7th International Young Chef Olympiad, World’s biggest culinary competition for student chefs, to be hosted virtually from January 31 to February 6, 2021

  • India to host contestants from 50 countries at YCO 2021
  • The winner will receive the coveted YCO 2021 Champion Trophy and a cash prize of USD 10,000

NEW DELHI, Jan. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — The world’s biggest Olympiad for culinary students – the IIHM International Young Chef Olympiad (YCO) – is back with a bang to celebrate the multicultural diversity of food from across the world. The seventh edition of the event will be held virtually this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic from 31th January to 6th February. YCO 2021 will witness participation of student chefs from 50 countries, including Spain, Canada, Switzerland, Italy, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Thailand, South Korea, Turkey, UAE, Sweden, among others. Adopting the theme of ‘Forward Together’, the competition will unite the young talents of the culinary world to champion this virtual culinary battle through their positive action.

Opening Ceremony is scheduled on Sunday Jan 31, 06:30 PM India Time OR 1 PM GMT and can be viewed at https://youtu.be/5Ym6p78NA5s

During the 5-day long intense competition, which is being organized by the International Institute of Hotel Management (IIHM) in partnership with the International Hospitality Council London, the contestants will undertake 2 rounds of culinary challenges in their quest to win the coveted YCO 2021 Champion Trophy, a cash prize of USD 10,000 and a validation of their skills by globally renowned experts from the food and hospitality industry.

Talking about YCO 2021, Dr Suborno Bose, the CEO of International Hospitality Council (IHC) and Founder YCO, said, “The COVID-19 Pandemic and an era of social distancing has not deterred our spirit to take the International Young Chef Olympiad to the next level. With 50 countries coming together virtually to celebrate the diversity of food from across the borders, YCO 2021 is not just the biggest culinary competition in the world but also a global platform fostering the spirit of youth, friendship, diversity and inclusiveness. Moreover, it brings all the young and talented future stars of the international culinary scene on a single platform where they connect with each other and share insights out of their experiences.”

YCO 2021 will commence on 31st January with a grand opening ceremony and the competition rounds will start from 1st February on Zoom video conferencing. The top 10 contestants as per the scores of the previous round will compete in the Grand Finale of YCO 2021 on 4th and 5th February split in 2 groups of 5 countries in each, across 2 days in different time zones to accommodate all. The Plate Trophy will also be held on the 4th and 5th February wherein the contestants holding positions 11 to 20 in the first round will compete. The Olympiad will conclude on 6th February with a closing ceremony, where the YCO 2021 Champion, runners-up and other awardees will be announced. This year, the participants will be competing for awards such as ‘Rising Star’, ‘Best Vegetarian Dish’, ‘Best Hygiene and Kitchen Practice’, ‘Best Chicken Saute Dish’, ‘Ambassador Award’, ‘Mentor Award’, ‘Sustainability Award’, ‘Best Use of Kitchen Cut’ and ‘Best Afternoon Tea Profiteroles’.

This year as the Olympiad is happening online, each participant will be recorded live in his or her own kitchen preparing and producing each of the 3 dishes within the prescribed time and a team of judges will be able to view the work of each participant throughout the entire competition period. Due to the time zones, competing countries will be divided into groups according to their local time’s close proximity. Separate virtual competition rooms will be created for each group of judges allowing for the judges to interact throughout the full period of the competition, to discuss each competitor and to mark accordingly.

In the competition’s first round, the contestants will be required to prepare three dishes – 4 portions of a Chicken cut for saute with a garnish and sauce, 8 chocolate eclairs suitable for a luxury afternoon tea and 4 portions of a Vegetarian dish using the mentioned ingredients in 2 and a half hours. The contestants will be judged on their basic skills, nutrition, health and safety, taste and creativity in this round.

The Grand Finale and Plate Trophy Finals of YCO 2021 will test the contestant’s creativity, innovation, cooking skills and professional good practice in a time bound environment. For the grand finale, the contestants will be given 2 and a half hours for preparing 2 litres of chicken stock into a consommé with a garnish and Gateau St Honore for 10 persons using a sweet pastry as the base and choux pastry filled with a crème chiboust. For the Plate Trophy Finals, the contestants will be required to prepare the same Gateau St Honore for 10 persons, but in 2 hours.

Padma Shri Chef Sanjeev Kapoor will be the Principal Judge and Mentor for YCO 2021 while Prof David Foskett (MBE) will be the Chairman of the Jury. The panel of judges will include internationally acclaimed judges and celebrity chefs including Chef Brian Turner, the President of the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts, Chef Andreas Muller from Hong Kong, Chef Chris Galvin (UK), Chef John Wood (UK), Chef Stuart Littlejohn (UK), Chef Henry Brosi (UK), Chef Andy Varma (UK), Chef Stefan Hogan (Malta), Chef Garth Stroebel (South Africa), Chef Enzo Oliveri (Italy), Chef Ranveer Brar (India), Chef Parvinder Bali (India), Chef Abhijit Saha (India) and many more. The judges will evaluate the contestants on their ability to efficiently manage a food production area keeping in mind factors like health and safety, good hygiene practice, ability to follow a recipe, culinary skills, creativity, etc.

Showcasing the multicultural culinary diversity of different countries, YCO 2021 will also bring together the student chefs and chef mentors for the ‘United World of Young Chefs’. This event will be held on 3rd February and it will provide a great opportunity for the 50 participating countries to present their national cuisine to a global culinary audience.

Launched in the year 2015, YCO aims to give young student chefs from around the world a platform to showcase their skills and compete at the global level. Through the last six editions of the Olympiad, the world has seen culinary stars being born and dreams being celebrated on the global culinary stage. The winners of the past editions of YCO were Ashwin Nicholas Oon from Malaysia (2015), Daniella Germond from Canada (2016), Tham Jiajun Mathew from Singapore (2017), Lai Jia Yi from Malaysia (2018), Cyrene Randrianasolo from France (2019) and Chen Khai Loong from Malaysia (2020).

Young Chef Olympiad website – https://ycolympiad.com/

About IIHM 

IIHM (International Institute of Hotel Management) is the largest chain of premier hospitality and hotel management schools across India that started its journey in 1994 at Kolkata. IIHM is a part of Indismart Group, the conglomerate that operates the Indismart Hotels. IIHM campuses are located across ten national and international cities with the associate institute IAM-IHM located in Kolkata, and Guwahati. Students passing out of IIHM are armed with an international degree from the University of West London and equipped with global hospitality skills that enable easy placements in any hospitality brand across the world. IIHM is dedicated to its pursuit of excellence in teaching and placements. Real time experience is the key to success in hospitality and that makes the institute popular. In recent years, IIHM has been instrumental in organizing the Young Chef Olympiad, a unique idea and initiative inviting young culinary talents across the world to participate in the biggest cookery reality shows of all times. 

The institute has bagged several prestigious awards in the past 24 years. The list includes the Best Education Brand Award from Economic Times consecutively in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. It was also featured in Forbes Magazine as Great Indian Institute and Great Place to Study consecutively in the year 2018 and 2019. IIHM was also awarded as one among the World’s Greatest Brands & Leaders 2015-16 by URS International (IMEA – Process Reviewer PriceWaterhouseCoopers PL) and also received the Best Institute in Hospitality Education 2017 Award by Assocham from Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Hon’ble Minister of State for HRD (Higher Education), Govt. of India. 

Media Contact :

Abdullah Ahmed

abdullah.ahmed@iihm.ac.in

+91-(0)1143204700,

Director, International Institute of Hotel Management

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Firstsource Partners with Typeface to Launch Agentic Marketing Services

New full-stack offering turns content operations into an agentic growth engine

NEW YORK and MUMBAI, India, April 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Firstsource Solutions Limited (NSE: FSL) (BSE: 532809), an RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group company, today announced the launch of a new offering — Agentic Marketing Services — in partnership with Typeface, the marketing orchestration engine for the world’s leading enterprises. The offering is designed to help enterprises move from marketing ambition to scale by transforming, implementing, and operating AI-native marketing systems. It transforms marketing operations into a scalable growth engine and delivers measurable top-line revenue growth beyond operational efficiency alone.

 

Firstsource Logo

 

Agentic AI is redefining how enterprises think about the customer lifecycle, and marketing content sits at the center of that transformation. Enterprises deploying AI-driven personalization are seeing up to 40% higher revenue compared to their peers. Content operations is both a growth lever and an efficiency play for CMOs: roughly 30% of CMO budgets go to content; approximately 55% of content work is manual — resizing, localization, brand compliance — while 90% of those manual workflows can be AI-enabled.

“At Firstsource, our approach has been about moving beyond traditional boundaries to build adaptive, intelligence-led ecosystems that deliver measurable outcomes. Content operations is now the most disrupted layer of the modern marketing stack, with Large Language Models reshaping the entire value chain — from ideation and production to governance and distribution — making it both the biggest near-term efficiency opportunity and the most exposed surface area in enterprise marketing,” said Ritesh Idnani, MD and Chief Executive Officer of Firstsource.

“CEOs and CMOs are not looking for a consultancy that hands off a roadmap or an agency that operates in silos — they want a partner who can transform, implement, and operate marketing systems end-to-end. By combining micro-segmentation, personalization, and deep industry context, we help clients build acquisition, engagement, and retention engines that are intelligent, compliant, and scalable. Typeface brings the AI technology to generate personalized, on-brand, compliant content at scale, and Firstsource brings deep experience in customer operations, especially in regulated industries like banking, financial services, healthcare, and retail. Together, we enable enterprises to plan, build, and run modern marketing — turning content operations into a compounding growth engine and delivering outcomes, not just effort.”

The partnership extends the capabilities announced with Typeface’s recent Marketing Orchestration Engine launch — bringing governed AI systems into full-stack marketing operations for regulated enterprises.

“AI only transforms marketing when it’s embedded into the workflows that drive real customer outcomes,” said Abhay Parasnis, Founder & CEO of Typeface. “Firstsource brings deep industry expertise and operational rigor in highly regulated environments. Together, we’re helping enterprises turn AI ambition into operational reality, embedding governed intelligence into the systems that power durable growth.” 

While Typeface provides the orchestration layer that unifies brand intelligence, AI agents, and enterprise systems, Firstsource brings the operational expertise and insights to enable effective decision making and implement and run these systems in complex, regulated environments. Together, they redesign how growth is driven — focusing on the moments, segments, and mechanisms that truly move the needle — enabling enterprises to shift from fragmented activity to scalable, revenue-led execution.

Industry view

“In retail, seasonality and micro-segmentation are where revenue is won or lost. Every peak moment demands thousands of personalized variants across marketing, service, and customer operations — and the retailers who get this right see real movement on acquisition, conversion, and retention, not just efficiency. What makes the Firstsource–Typeface offering different is that it is not another tool — it is an operating capability. Pairing agentic AI with embedded marketing operations is exactly what retailers need to move from broad campaigns to true lifecycle-driven engagement. For the industry, this is a meaningful step-change in how growth gets engineered.”

– Dave Kimbell, Ex-CEO Ulta Beauty; Firstsource Advisory Board Member

“Healthcare payers sit on a real paradox: a huge share of member communication is locked inside PHI and claims workflows where the rules are clear and rightly strict — but the biggest lever on affordability lives outside that envelope, in how payers engage members on wellness, prevention, plan literacy, and proactive disease management. That is a white-space opportunity the industry has barely touched. This is where marketing AI services can genuinely move the needle. With micro-segmentation and agentic content, payers can reach the right member with the right nudge at the right moment — entirely within compliant, non-PHI pathways — and shift the engagement model from acquisition and retention to lifelong wellness. That is how you make healthcare more affordable, improve member experience, and strengthen the economics of the plan at the same time. The Firstsource–Typeface offering is one of the few capabilities purpose-built to operate at that intersection of compliance, personalization, and outcomes.”

– Paul Sanford, Ex-EVP Operations, Cigna Group; Firstsource Advisory Board Member

About Firstsource

Firstsource Solutions Limited, an RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group company (NSE: FSL) (BSE: 532809), is a global intelligence partner to enterprises across healthcare, banking and financial services, communications, media, technology, retail, and utilities. Its inch-wide, mile-deep practitioners work collaboratively to reimagine business process management.

With operations across the US, UK, India, Philippines, Mexico, Romania, Trinidad & Tobago, South Africa, and Australia, Firstsource combines over twenty-five years of domain expertise with an agent-first delivery model to design, build, and operate intelligent enterprise operations. Through its Intelligence That Operates promise—powered by Kairos, the operating system that makes it real—the company unifies consulting, implementation, and operations into a single full-stack engagement and underwrites outcomes, not effort, turning deep domain intelligence into a compounding operational advantage for firms in the world’s most regulated industries. (www.firstsource.com)

About Typeface

Typeface is a marketing orchestration engine for the world’s leading enterprises, coordinating brand intelligence, AI agents, and enterprise systems across cross-channel marketing operations. Built for large organizations, Typeface combines shared brand intelligence, governed agent workflows, and deep enterprise integration at scale — connecting seamlessly with platforms like Salesforce, Microsoft, and Google — to help teams scale what works without sacrificing quality or control. Trusted by Fortune 500 companies, Typeface enables organizations to operationalize AI inside real marketing workflows, turning brand standards, approvals, and performance signals into coordinated systems that improve over time. Typeface is backed by Lightspeed, GV, Salesforce Ventures, Madrona, Menlo, and M12, and has been recognized by Fast Company, Gartner, TIME, LinkedIn, and Adweek as a leader in AI for marketing. Learn more at www.typeface.ai.

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Shaping Future-Ready School Leaders: Woxsen University Leads Design Thinking Initiative for Principals

HYDERABAD, India, April 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The School of Arts and Design at Woxsen University, in collaboration with the Public-School Principals’ Association (PSPA), conducted a Principal Leadership Programme on April 27, bringing together 30 principals from leading schools across Hyderabad for an immersive, design-led learning experience focused on rethinking leadership in contemporary education.

Participating institutions included Delhi Public School, Sloka International School (Tukkuguda), Jain Heritage Cambridge School, AVN Vida International School, CMR School (Medchal), and Gitanjali High School, among others. Designed as a hands-on, studio-based workshop, the programme moved beyond traditional formats, enabling participants to engage in collaborative problem-solving, systems thinking, and real-world leadership challenges.

The programme was delivered by Woxsen’s Centre for Learning Design (CLD) and the David Dunne Design Thinking Lab, and was guided by the university’s ERS (Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability) framework, reflecting an integrated and purpose-driven approach to leadership development.

Through guided design thinking exercises, principals explored new approaches to decision-making, innovation in school ecosystems, and building student-centric learning environments. The interactive format encouraged peer exchange and practical application, making the experience directly relevant to institutional leadership.

Rajendra Prasad, President of the PSPA, said, “The School Principals’ Leadership Workshop at Woxsen University was well organized and delivered with great impact. The sessions were highly engaging and insightful, and the programme received overwhelming positive feedback from participants for both its content and overall experience.”

Dr. Ashok Pandey, Member of the PSPA Leadership Team, shared, “An inspiring day at the picturesque Woxsen University campus, engaging with exceptional school leaders committed to designing the schools of tomorrow.” 

Dr. Adity Saxena, Dean, School of Arts & Design, said, “This programme is aligned with Woxsen’s core pillar of Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability, reinforcing our commitment to purpose-driven education. We see our role as bridging ideas, institutions, and impact in education, and we are grateful to PSPA and Rajendra Prasad for this meaningful collaboration.”

The initiative reflects Woxsen University’s commitment to strengthening the school education ecosystem in Telangana by building leadership capacity and fostering future-ready thinking among educators. Following the workshop, the PSPA leadership team engaged in a strategic discussion with Dr. Adity Saxena to explore future collaboration opportunities.

Building on the momentum of the programme, Woxsen University and PSPA are exploring the launch of a structured Principal Leadership Certificate Programme. The proposed initiative aims to institutionalize leadership development for school heads and further strengthen the region’s education ecosystem through sustained, practice-oriented engagement.

About Woxsen University, Hyderabad

Woxsen University, located in Hyderabad, is one of the first private universities in the state of Telangana, India. Renowned for its 200-acre state-of-the-art campus and infrastructure, Woxsen University offers new-age, disruptive programs in the fields of Business, Technology, Arts & Design, Architecture, Law, and Liberal Arts & Humanities. Woxsen also houses Asia’s largest Sports Infrastructure, spread over 60 acres. With 175 Global Partner Universities and a strong industry connect, Woxsen is recognized as one of the top universities for Academic Excellence and Global Edge. Woxsen has also secured the QS Business Masters World Ranking 2025, Rank #9 All India, Top 100 B-Schools by Times B-School Ranking 2025, Rank #6, Asia Pacific, Bloomberg Best B-School, and features in India’s Best B-Schools beyond IIMs by Dalal Street Investment Journal 2025, in 4th consecutive year. Woxsen is ranked as one of the Top Professional Colleges in India by Outlook I-CARE for its undergraduate programs, securing All India Rank 12 among the Top 130 BBA Private Institutes, All India Rank 20 among the Top 160 B.Tech Private Institutes, All India Rank 3 among the Top 25 Design Private Institutes, and All India Rank 3 among the Top 30 B. Arch Private Institutes.

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HarperCollins is proud to announce the publication of The Book of Daily Brilliance: 111 Days to Transformation by Pamela Puja Kirpalani

Published by HarperCollins

Hardback | Non-Fiction/Self-Help | 140 pp | INR 399

Available wherever books are sold | Releasing on 24 April 2026

NEW DELHI, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — HarperCollins Publishers India is thrilled to announce the publication of The Book of Daily Brilliance: 111 Days to Transformation by Pamela Puja Kirpalani, a practical guide towards a spiritual and psychological transformation.

ORDER HERE

ABOUT THE BOOK

Everyone in the world has good days and bad days. But what if there was a way to unleash one’s radiant self every day? Something simple yet profound—something the reader could reach for every day to centre themselves and remember what really matters.

The Book of Daily Brilliance is designed to speak to the heart and the highest self. Meant to be read over 111 days and covering topics that resonate with all—relationships, self-worth, love, pain, abundance, manifestation, surrender and much more—this daily reader will guide the one through a gentle yet powerful spiritual and psychological journey.

There is no fixed start date. No pressure to be perfect. If a day is skipped or there is a pause for a while, that is okay. All that’s needed to do is come back when it feels right. For those who choose to commit to the 111-day journey, the experience reveals the unfolding of a deeper truth within. 

So, take a deep breath. Open the page to Day 1 and let this be an invitation to return to oneself —one day, one page, one insight at a time.

Pamela Puja Kirpalani says, “One page can really just change the way you show up for your life. I wrote The Book of Daily Brilliance to be something you return to, not just read once — a daily pause that brings clarity, perspective and healing. In a fast-paced world, I believe even a single mindful page a day can create powerful inner psychological shifts. This 111 Daily Reader is my way of helping people reconnect with themselves— and if it helps someone feel more present, more grounded, and more like themselves, then it has done exactly what I hoped it would.”

Sachin Sharma, Publisher, HarperCollins India, says, The Book of Daily Brilliance offers a perfect pause amidst the busyness of life. Readers will appreciate how the book gently guides them through a journey of transformation—without any pressure—one step, one day at a time.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pamela Puja Kirpalani is the Founder of Inner High Living and a distinguished thought leader in the world of behavioural psychology and neuro-behaviour. Her vision materialized as she started coaching individuals, couples and parents on achieving their goals initially using Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) as a modality. She is certified by ABNlp (Australian Board of Neuro-Linguistic Programming), IEMT (Integrated Eye Movement Technique) Practitioner, member of the APSS Singapore and the NLP Association of Singapore.

ABOUT HARPERCOLLINS INDIA

At HarperCollins Publishers India, we believe in telling the best stories and ensuring they reach the widest readership. We publish around 250 new books every year across 10 imprints, adding to a diverse catalogue of more than 2,000 titles across print and digital formats. Our authors include APJ Abdul Kalam, Agatha Christie, Amish Tripathi, Amitav Ghosh (Erasmus Prize 2024), Jhumpa Lahiri, Paulo Coelho, Raghuram Rajan, Sudha Murty, Ruskin Bond and many more.

HarperCollins India has been honoured with seven Publisher of the Year awards and proudly represents global publishers such as Harvard University Press, Lonely Planet, Oneworld, Nosy Crow, Usborne and National Geographic Children.

We have also been certified as a Great Place to Work for two consecutive years, a testament to our culture, creativity and people.

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