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Young innovators pitch futuristic solutions for tribal, rural and urban problems in Pune
There were three categories namely tribal, rural and urban and each category had six innovators who presented their ideas
In an annual meet for young innovators at the Yashada auditorium, innovators came up with ideas to tackle various rural, urban and tribal problems. At the end of the meet, three innovators Partha Pratim Das Mahapatra, Mayur Shetty, Rajendra Prasad Moturu were declared winners and awarded Rs 50,000 each for their idea. The meet was organised to introduce young innovators to corporate social responsibility (CSR) funding to take their project further.
About 18 innovators from across the country participated in the 7th National Conference on Social Innovation (NCSI). The event was initiated by Pune International Centre (PIC); Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai; (TISS) and National Innovation Foundation (NIF).
There were three categories namely tribal, rural and urban and each category had six innovators who presented their ideas. Also the innovators could access free mentoring worth Rs 50,000 to make their project more viable and accessible to more people.
The meet saw various new ideas ranging from finger millet ladoos, solar water purification and solar baked cookie machine under the tribal category; early detection of cervical cancer, moisture detection in fields, non-invasive haemoglobin testing method under the rural category and game-based digital autism screening kits, first aid for bone fractures and mobile app to report local issues under the urban category.
The event began with an Anjani Mashelkar award for GenRobotics for designing ‘Bandicoot’ robot to tackle manual scavenging at the hands of Raghunath Mashelkar, scientist and Vijay Kelkar, economist.
“It is shameful that in India more than 50 lakh people are engaged in this inhuman practice of scavenging due to unemployment. But innovation leads to transformation and India can create scientific and technological solutions which can transform lives,” said Mashelkar.
Winners
Rural category: Ezerx Health Tech Private limited. Partha Pratim Das Mahapatra. Non-invasive, non-contact and portable device to measure haemoglobin estimation, bilirubin measurement and oxygen saturation level at point of care in human subject by measuring the spectroscopic signal emanating from the vascular bed of the bulbar conjuctive.
Urban category: Black Frog Technologies Private limited. Mayur Shetty presented ‘Sanjivani’, a portable active (battery powered) cooling device that will provide a platform for delivery of vaccines and all other biological samples of blood, tissue culture which are required to be kept strictly between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius for 8 hours.
Tribal category: Clevinno. Rajendra Prasad Moturu presented the solar water purifier. The machine is easy to carry to any place/ water source and collect water to purify it. There is no need to connect to an external power supply, so we can use it at ponds, rivers or any water source. The basic design provides 600-700 litres of purified water per daylight (6am to 6pm), making it best suitable for schools, hospitals panchayat offices or any public places.
