I am not sure if you remember, but last Year Indian Government had announced a creative contest for designing the new rupee symbol. Yeah, they also got into Crowdsourcing mode as well !
They received more than 25000 entries for the designing the new rupee – and why not. Imagine having the symbol design created by you for Indian rupee that will be seen and used by Billions of people worldwide – probably the most prestigious thing you may do in your life !
Till now India does not have a symbol for its rupee, while worldwide, most of the countries have a currency symbol for themselves For Eg: $ represents the US Dollar, £ is used for GBP, € for Euro etc.
Now, out of these 25000 entries, 5 symbol entries have been shortlisted and very soon we will also know the winners as well. These 5 shortlisted entries will be awarded a prize of 25,000 rupees and the winner will take 250,000 rupees.
Following are the 5 people who are shortlisted in the contest: [source]
- Nondita Correa-Mehrotra, Architect
- D Udaya Kumar, PhD student, IDC, IIT-Bombay
- Shahrukh J Irani, creative director, Publicis Ambience
- Shibin KK, Teacher
- Hitesh Padmashali, Creative Director, JWT
This contest is not about the money, but the prestige being associated with making symbol for your country’s currency !
I am eagerly waiting to see our new Indian Rupee Symbol :)