Igenius Jury

• Derek O'Brien

  

  Derek O’Brien began his professional career as a sports journalist with Sportsworld, but soon shifted to advertising and worked at Ogilvy as Creative Head. Derek is primarily known as Asia’s best known quiz master and CEO of Derek O’Brien & Associates. He also hosts the longest running corporate quiz show, The Economic Times brand equity quiz. Keeping abreast with times, Derek is credited with hosting quiz on Twitter in 2010.

  Apart from conducting live quizzes across the length and breadth of India Derek O’Brien also conducts quiz outside India like US, UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Pakistan. In addition to all this he has authored numerous reference and quiz books for Penguin, making him Penguin’s largest selling author.

  In the year 2004, he joined the All India Trinamool Congress political party thus beginning his political career and became the Member of Parliament of Rajya Sabha in 2011.

• Neil O'Brien

  

  Primarily known as the father of Indian quizzing, Neil is a well known educationist and is the Chairman of ICSE board. He is also the former member of the Parliament and member of the West Bengal legislative assembly. He pioneered the ‘3R’ theory of learning: Read, Record and Recall. Neil O’Brien also served as the Managing Director of Oxford university press (largest publisher of educational books).

• Ruskin Bond

  

  Ruskin Bond, born 19 May 1934, is an Indian author of British descent is considered to be an icon among Indian writer and children’s authors. In 1992 he received the Sahitya Akademi award for English writing for his short stories collection, “Our trees still grow in Dehra”. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 for contributions to children’s literature. His first novel, “The room on the roof”, was written when he was 17 and won him the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written over three hundred short stories, essays and novellas (including Vagrants in the valley, The blue umbrella and A flight of pigeons and more than 30 books for children. He has also published two volumes of autobiography. He now lives with his adopted family in Landour near Mussoorie.