Eligibility Criteria 2024

For inclusion in the Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech list, individuals must comply with the following eligibility criteria:

1. Individuals must be predominantly resident in the UK.
2. Individuals must be of East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian or Western Asian descent themselves or a descendent of any genealogical combination of these.

The minimum requirement is 25% Asian heritage, i.e. at least one grandparent must be/have been from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia or Western Asia.

For the purposes of this list, the eligible countries comprise those of East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia and their dependent territories, including : Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Vietnam.

For the purposes of this list, the eligible countries comprising the Middle East include: Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

3. Individuals must be working in the digital and technology industries in the United Kingdom.
4. Each individual needs to be assignable to a primary category, e.g. investor. 

The Top 5 categories for 2024 are:

  • Business (incl. B2B, B2C, EdTech, FinTech, InsureTech, IoT, Proptech, Retail, RegTech etc.)
  • HealthTech (incl. Life Sciences, Medtech, Wellbeing and Health-related tech businesses)
  • ImpactTech (incl AI, ESG, Climate Tech, GreenTech, Energy, Social Enterprises, Tech for SDGs) *
  • Investors (incl. Accelerator, Incubator, Angel Investor, PE, Venture Capital, Corporate Investor)
  • Startups (entrepreneurs who have set up in the past 5 years or so)

* In previous years we have chosen to showcase Digital Influencers (2015), Social Entrepreneurs (2015), EdTech (2016), FinTech (2017 & 2023), Creative Industries (2018), Sustainability (2020) GreenTech (2021), AI (2022) and Life Sciences (2022).

Nominations are not accepted for the Asian Tech Pioneers Award as this this award is at the behest of a judging panel 

Nominations are not accepted for the Chairman’s Award as this award is at the behest of the Chairman of Judges.

5. Each individual must be able to demonstrate:
  1. An executive level of seniority and reach within their organisation, e.g. CEO, COO, CTO, CDO, CMO or equivalent titles.
  2. Impact – this can either be based on number of ventures started, awards won, investment raised, exits achieved, people helped etc.
  3. A significant level of innovation – this is strength of their business idea or scope of their strategy or plan.
  4. A significant level of influence – this is a subjective criterion and would be determined by their public profile, social media followers, TED talks, podcasts, vodcasts, white papers, conference speeches, seminars hosted etc.
  5. Extensive knowledge and authority in their field or sector of technology as determined by peer review papers, expert interviews, publications and books published.

Individuals will then assessed from a longlist to a shortlist to a final list before being selected in the Top 5 categories as described above.

The final shortlist of the Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech is determined by the jury panel.

A nomination and GDPR consent DOES NOT guarantee shortlisting.

Expert judges are asked to make their selections independently of each other with a casting vote by the Chair of the Judging Panel, if required. Judges are asked to declare any conflicts of interest and are excluded for consideration on the list. A weighting factor is applied to ensure nominees are not effected by any conflicts of interest among judges.

The information for each individual is compiled from published sources. Every possible effort has been made to ensure the information contained in The Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech is accurate at the time of going to press. Notification of any errors, amendments or omissions can be sent via the Contact Us page.

Exclusions

Nominations are open to all who can meet the eligibility criteria described above excluding the following:

  • Asians in Tech Judges
  • Asians in Tech Pioneer Award Winners.
  • Chairman’s Award Winners
  • Diversity UK Trustees
  • Sponsors & Partners