Poorti, an affordable, lightweight post mastectomy kit, Saarthi, an affordable handheld device for the visually impaired and SelfCervi, device for real-time self-screening of cervical cancer are three of the eight social innovations were declared winners at the India Innovation Growth Programme (IIGP) 2.0 on Thursday.
The programme is a tripartite initiative of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, Lockheed Martin and Tata Trusts.
The winners were chosen from among 3,000 applicants who proposed innovations to create large-scale social impact and bring industrial transformation in India. The programme aims to support the ‘Start-up India’ and ‘Make in India’ initiatives. The winners were awarded an amount of Rs 25 lakh each.
Among the other winning innovations was Moksh, which traverses an agriculture farm post-harvest of a rice crop. It picks the rice straw from the ground on a real-time basis and converts the rice-straw into a powder form.
The others in the social category include piCards, a low-cost continuous feedback, audience polling and formative assessment solution that lets teachers assess comprehension levels in classrooms to improve learning outcomes.
Bandicoot robot is a semiautomatic robotic system for manhole and sewer line cleaning aimed at eliminating manual scavenging. TouchVision is a multisensory inclusive education platform for visually impaired people to learn and thrive by fostering an inclusive world. Another winner was Shira Clamps which aims to make microsurgery possible for all surgeons in all domains.
In the industrial category, there were eight winners — IIT Madras, Delectrik Systems, DRIVAMP, Etrix Technologies, Irov Technologies Private Limited, MakerInMe Technologies. Manastu Space Technologies and Sastra Robotics India. The winning innovations were evaluated under various parameters — technological innovation, sustainability of the proposed solution, unique value/proposition, development status, social impact and funding required for technology development among others.
“As we continue to build on Tata Trusts’ legacy of promoting science and technology research in India, we believe that initiatives like IIGP can open up multiple opportunities for entrepreneurs to translate their innovations into high impact solutions, that benefit the poor and underserved at scale,” Manoj Kumar, Head, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Tata Trusts & CEO, Social Alpha said.
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