Shooting star award

I was conferred with Shooting Star 'Utkrashtakarta' उत्कृष्टकर्ता Award during Diwali event organized by Scottish Hindu Foundation, on 29th October 2025 hosted by Secretary of state for Scotland at Queen Elizabeth House, Edinburgh, UK, in the presence of MPs and members of Scottish Parliament (MSP) including Jackie Baillie, Sandesh Gulhane, Michael Marra, and Lord Provost of Glasgow. This award is to recognize my efforts (via iSeek) through gamification of Indian culture and heritage including Hinduism, Scriptures, Yoga, Sanskrit, Indic Language and Arts.

The award citation said "Dr. Pradeep is a neuroscientist, engineer, and digital creator whose work unites science, culture, and technology. A Ph.D. in Auditory Neuroscience from Newcastle University, he has pioneered the gamification of Indian culture through his social initiative iSeek — designing twenty five free-to-play digital games on Yoga, Sanskrit, Hinduism, and Indian heritage, in collaboration with organizations such as the Scottish Hindu Foundation, Yogavijnana, Sanskrut Bhakti, Samskrita Bharati, and The Hindu Temple of Scotland.

His games, featured on projects like Project Shatam, make learning ancient knowledge joyful and interactive. His paper on Digital Game-Based Learning for Sanskrit was presented at the 19th World Sanskrit Conference, Nepal in 2025. Beyond cultural innovation, his neuroscience research explores the brain basis of sound perception, auditory cognition and emotion, including popular work on Misophonia. His journey exemplifies how tradition and technology can come together to inspire curiosity, learning, and inner awareness."

At the annual celebration, SHF conferred a total of three awards apart from me - Guiding star award to Smt Brij Lata Gandhi, Rising star award to Ms. Sowparnika Gopalakrishnan, and Hindu Business award to Dr Nivedita Natarajan. Here is a picture of all awardees in 2025.

I thank Scottish Hindu Foundation for conferring this special award on me to recognize my efforts. I have been publishing knowledge games aimed towards my community for a couple of years now. So it means a lot coming from my own community. 

Gratitude!

Here is a brief video of me receiving the award.