3 city innovators get MIT pat

Sagar Bedmutha was annoyed at the constant stream of spam messages that he received on his mobile phone. Wanting to put an end to it, he decided to turn into an innovator in 2008.

Sagar Bedmutha was annoyed at the constant stream of spam messages that he received on his mobile phone. Wanting to put an end to it, he decided to turn into an innovator in 2008.

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After 18 months of research and development, the 29-year-old, along with a three-member team in Pune, created an “intelligent” SMS blocker that automatically blocks spam messages. The application also allows users to restore a blocked message.

“Despite registering with the National Do Not Call Registry, I would be flooded with spam messages,” said Bedmutha, founder, Optinno Mobitech, Pune. “Since there was no solution, I decided to create one.”

Having launched the application in July 2010, Bedmutha’s team is among the 18 hottest technology innovators in the country selected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's publication, Technology Review. Of the 18 innovators, five belong to the state – three from Mumbai.

In its second year, MIT Tech Review India received almost 200 entries from innovators below the age of 35 years as compared to 110 last year. In 2010, 20 innovations made it to the final list.

On March 22, these young innovators will hob-nob with eminent scientists and academics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the MIT Technology Review’s emerging technologies conference at Bangalore.

“A majority of the 18 young men and women chosen have developed technological solutions to common problems faced by people,” said Narayanan Suresh, group editor of Technology Review India. “Their exceptional technical contributions hold great promise to shape our future.”

Of the 18 innovations, Technology Review has chosen three innovators for special honours – Alefia Merchant, Ajit Narayanan and Gautam Kumar.