Kindly review my evidences for exceptional promise

Stage 1
1

First of all, I thank everyone in the forum for your valuable time and effort to make the process as smooth as possible.

In fact, I am in the process of preparing documents. I hope to submit as soon as I receive the LoRs from respective people

Apart from CV & Personal Statements, below are the intended documents I am planning to submit for the exceptional promise route

My Background: I am from Sri Lanka and I have 10+ years of experience in both academia and industry, but I have less than 5 years (3) experience as a CTO in a product-led edutech start up company. Further, I have Bachelor Degree in IT (3 Years), Bachelor of Laws (4 Years), Master of Science in IT (2 Years) and Master of Business Administration (2 Years)

LORs

  1. From My MSc Professor who is also the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University
  2. From Director of University Business Linkage Cell who is a PhD Holder and Senior Academic from another State University
  3. From Senior Project Specialist based in United States

Evidences

Mandatory Criteria

1. Story of xyz Company: In this evidence, I discuss about the inception of the company, how I co-founded the company, the shares I own in the company, the impact it made on the users etc (I don’t have financial accounting details and also I didn’t get salary but 20% of the shares)
2. Commanding High Income: In this evidence, 1st I provide statistical information about my country’s income rate, employability and etc. Then I draw from difference source of income I concurrently make all are related to technology and then I compare the UK’s income threshold and justify I make and have the potential to earn much higher than the typical income level of my country.
3. Additional Reference Letter from my product-led company’s CEO
4. Keynote, Live Media Appearances and Invited Talks: Here I include details about appreciations I received, 2 of my TV interviews with screenshots and links, and Invited Talks (Here I don’t have proper documents except images)

Optional Criteria 02: a proof of recognition for work beyond the applicant’s occupation that contributes to the advancement of the field

1. Keynote, Live Media Appearances and Invited Talks: (Also used in MC No. 4)
2. National & International Contribution towards the ICT higher education: Here, I discuss about my contribution to national universities’ ICT curriculum revision, Invited opportunity to supervise undergraduates and etc.
3. Accomplished Freelancer: Ranked Among the Top 500 Freelancer in the World: I am among the top 500 freelancers in terms of earning in Freelancer.com with over 400 project completion. So I provide direct link, screen shots, their ranking criteria and clients’ feedback and countries I have served.

Optional Criteria: 04 they have demonstrated exceptional ability in the field by academic contributions through research endorsed by an expert.

1. Professional Membership & Global Recognition: Here, I discuss about my professional memberships including 1 chartered membership and their criteria. And I am also a AWS Community Builder for the last 2 years and AWS Certified Solutions Architect, So I present those details
2. Academic Achievements: Diverse Educational Background in IT, Business Administration, and Law: In this I draw the attention of education system in my country and having 4 degrees (2 Bachelors and 2 Masters from State Universities) while managing industry roles as something rare and so on.
3. Research Endorsement Letter by a Researcher: I am trying to get 1 from my home country person who got endorsement as Exceptional Talent through academic route.
4. Peer reviewed publications and Editorship: Here, I present 2 of my IEEE articles related to NLP and IoT. Further 2 Journal articles related to Computer Vision and Data Science

Anything I have done correctly above is due to this wonderful forum. I want you to go through and provide your input. Any suggestions are most welcome.

Thank you.

2

Your referees are mostly from academia. I would recommend you use mostly industry experts besides it is not clear if those listed are experts in the digital technology field.

I think your evidence are not sufficient, you still need to do some work or read the guide to understand what is required.

For the Mandatory criteria what are you trying to prove with the company? It seems this is a self authored evidence, what evidence do you have to show the impact you made on users?

  1. High salary is fine, based on feedback from other applicants it doesn’t seem to carry a lot of weight. In my opinion it’s just an additional evidence to the main evi

  2. If you read the guide in details you should know that your “accomplished freelancer Evidence” makes it easier for the assessor not to endorse your application. It is clearly stated that those doing consulting and outsourcing are not eligible. I would take this out completely. Use your full-time job not freelancing…

  3. Key note and love media appearance. There’s no point mixing unrelated evidence. For the keynote, were you a speaker at a conference? If so show the evidence of you speaking, conference invitation, programme of event showing your name. For the TV appearance you can make it a separate Evidence,show the screenshot and get a reference letter from the TV to confirm you were invited because you are an expert or leader in the sector.

For Optional Criteria 2;

  1. You can’t use the same Evidence in MC. You need to use unique evidence in each criteria. You also can’t use freelancing.

Optional criteria 4 Seems to be your strongest point however the reference letter regarding should show they meet global standards and your research achievements.

I don’t see how professional membership meet this criteria. also your academic achievements may not count unless you show you made a first class or distinction in your degrees. These are just my thoughts.

3

@Francisca_Chiedu Thank you so much for your valuable and constructive feedback.

With regard to LoR, as per the TNV Guide where it says experts in the digital technology field, I have considered them as accomplished researchers from reputed universities with strong connection with technology industry.

With regard to company, I present the story of the inception of the company, my role as CTO, how we made impact through the product and few analytics, my share holding and appreciation from the users of the product.

I was doing freelancing till 2020. Thereafter, I did quite freelancing and formed company as co-founder in the mid of 2020. Freelancer helped me earn a lot of money and gets hands on experience with various tools and technologies. Can’t this be shown as a form of global reputation as in there are 66 million users and I am within 500 as per their matrix?

With regard to Key note and live media appearance, I thought all of these are invited and a form of recognition. That’s the reason I put them all together.

With regard to professional membership, I consider they are a form of recognition and appreciation based on the stringent criteria set out for awarding the membership by the respective professional bodies incorporated by the relevant acts. And AWS community builder is another form of appreciation to my work in the field of cloud computing.

Please refine my arguments.

Thank you again for your valuable time