An Indian American pioneer in digital education has won the 2006 Champions of Digital Literacy Inspiration Award for making the most contributions globally to bridging the digital divide.

Appu Kuttan, chairman and founder of CyberLearning, the global non-profit leader in digital education, was presented the award by David Saedi, president and CEO of Certiport, at a ceremony at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, Saturday.

"This award is given in recognition of exceptional vision and leadership in bridging the digital divide. We selected Appu Kuttan unanimously for this prestigious award because of his outstanding leadership efforts and contributions towards bridging the digital divide by advancing digital literacy in many countries over many years," he said.

Kuttan was chosen for the Inspiration Award from 13 Champions of Digital Literacy award recipients. They included education, government, corporate and non-profit leaders from China, Japan, Greece, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Puerto Rico and the US, a Certport release said.

Kuttan founded CyberLearning in 1994, and has since built it into the world's leading global non-profit organisation bridging the digital divide through digital education.

CyberLearning has trained over a million disadvantaged students and adults in digital literacy and IT skills. Its programmes have been implemented in the US, India, Jordan, Egypt and Mauritius among others.

Kuttan's contribution to digital and IT education spans 20 years from advising late Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi on making India an IT power, to currently helping Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam transform Mauritius into an IT-focused nation by providing digital literacy and IT education to 400,000 Mauritians to providing digital education to thousands of disadvantaged school students and teachers in the US and India.

"I am heartened that many country leaders have asked us to help them replicate the Mauritius model in their countries by implementing cost-effective holistic systems for digital literacy and IT education," Kuttan said.

Kuttan is an international management and education systems expert, and author of several innovative concepts, such as "CyberLearning," "Management By Systems (MBS)," "Total Tennis" and "Holistic Executive."