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Simran Vedvyas Image Credit: Supplied

Dubai: A Dubai-based Indian teenager, Simran Vedvyas, has bagged the NRI of the Year Award 2017 in Mumbai, India.

Presented by Times Now, ICICI Bank and GIIS (Global Indian International School), the award recognised the deserving spirit of those globetrotting Indians who have made a change by their work and action reaching the pinnacles of success globally by rising every day.

Currently pursuing her undergraduate honours degree at the University of Toronto, Canada, Simran was born and raised in Dubai. She bagged the award in the Academics Category in the award’s fourth edition, said a press release.

The entire process of the awards — right from nominations to choosing the winners — had a five-tier evaluation process managed by Ernst & Young and an eminent jury.

“Simran is persuasive, ambitious, dependable, an achiever who thoroughly enjoys executing anything with a big impact,” the jury noted.

The youngest recipient of Emirates Women of the Year - Young Achiever for the region, Simran believes that “youth are the future champions”.

At 18, she has reached out, influenced and benefited thousands to serve humanity and environment beyond boundaries.

She finds herself continuously self-motivated to “dreaming large and achieving big”. As a responsible global youth citizen, Simran has remarkably led over 75 successful youth engagement campaigns through her youth group Synergy.

These include ‘Green Space New Life’ that witnessed 3,000 trees planted at landfills across the UAE, and ‘Convoy to Feed’ that distributed food supplies to nearly 4,000 workers at various landfills. She holds the record of winning six highest national academic distinctions received in consecutive years.

These include thrice winning the Shaikh Hamdan Award and also thrice the Sharjah Education Award. She has been recognised at home and abroad for her academic and humanitarian achievements.

At 12, she was chosen as the youngest from the region to carry the Olympic Flame at the London Olympics in 2012.

Success for her lies in the belief that at the end of the day, her actions have a positive effect on those around her.

From more than 25,000 nominations in various coveted award categories including the field of Entrepreneurship, Philanthropy, Academics, Arts and Business Professionals and a new category of ‘Start-ups’, 23 non-resident Indians received the honour.

The Global India Impact Award was bagged by the team of record-breaking and the biggest blockbuster movie of all times Bahubali and its team of writer V. Vijay Prasad and celebrity actress Tamaannah Bhatia, the release added.