Indian Innovation Awards

Election Commission of India

Dr. Alok Shukla, Deputy Election Commissioner receives the National Innovation Star Trophy from Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India

For Transforming Electoral Processes: Implementing Electronic Voting in the World’s Largest Democracy.

Development and deployment of electronic voting machine that would be friendly to diverse Indian users and meet the stringent constitutional requirements involved a number of Innovations. These involved tackling aspects of secrecy, authentication by contestants, avoidance of incorrect/duplicate voting, protection against manipulative interests of individuals, political parties, and election mangers at the election site and during transportation, and building in redundancies in case of failures.

Electronic Voting Machine with specialised hardware and software developed for the first time anywhere in the world, to incorporate these interrelated features is India’s outstanding innovative contribution of relevance to countries adopting elected political systems.

Honey Bee Network & National Innovation Foundation

Ms. Kapuriben, Innovator, Honey Bee Network & National Innovation Foundation receives the National Innovation Star Trophy from Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India

For Empowering Grassroots Innovators and Opening New Pathways for Inclusive Innovations.

The Honey Bee programme was started 20 years ago to scout, spawn and sustain creative urges, ideas, innovations and traditional knowledge practices of unaided knowledge-rich economically poor in the unorganised sectors of the society. It has grown into a national and international ‘Grassroots Innovation’ Movement. In India it has already created, while protecting the intellectual property rights of unaided innovators, database of over 1,60,000 Grassroots innovations adding value to selected innovations, and diffusing the outstanding ones in India and abroad, on commercial and or non-commercial basis, as desired by the innovator. The programme has expanded with umbrella provided by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), whose Grassroots to Global (G2G) model, is seen as a ‘game changer’ in the way the world looks at and values technological innovations.

Ministry of Health & Family Welfare

Mr. P. K. Pradhan, Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare receives the National Innovation Star Trophy from Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India

For Successful Management of Zero Failure Immunization in Indian Diversity: Making India Polio Free.

From development of the bivalent, simple to administer vaccine (Oral Polio Vaccine- OPV), to design and implementation of a large scale complex network of millions of health workers, public institutions and target population living in diverse social, economic, cultural, and geographical conditions, the campaign involved locating each and every polio-affected case through the length and breadth of the country, repeated administration of the vaccine, and monitoring to ensure zero tolerance to new cases, thereby by 2011 totally eradicating polio and making India a polio free nation.

SPIC MACAY

Mr. Prasoon Raj, Secretary, SPIC MACAY receives the National Innovation Star Trophy from Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India

For Stimulating and Cultivating Appreciation and Pride in Classical Forms and Values Amongst a Globalizing Youth.

Launched in 1977 by mobilising voluntary commitments of individuals, in a spirit of service to the youth and celebration of Indian culture, the self-organising decentralised model, while retaining the high norms and standards inherent in engaging with Indian classical cultural forms has grown to a network of over 200 centers in India and 50 centers abroad, conducting 2,000 events annually in educational institutions, empowering, stimulating and motivating students to acquire right appreciation and pride in Indian classical music and culture and its attendant legends, mythology and philosophy, thereby, inculcating in them values, that transcend bare intellectualism, and otherwise tend to get submerged under the rubric of ‘globalisation and modernisation’.

Palkhed Irrigation Division, Nashik

Mr. B. N. Kandarphale, Executive Director, GMIDC receives the Gold Trophy from Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India

For introducing an innovative Water Users’ Associations model that has, building upon the traditional community practices of farmers, of management of irrigation (Participatory Irrigation Management), vitalized a sense of ownership & responsibility amongst the farmers in adopting modern irrigation techniques for efficient & productive use of water leading upto the setting-up of the Waghad Agriculture Producer Company (WAPCO).

Through collective action under this company, farmers have been able to reduce cost of agriculture inputs, and by introducing processing technologies and IT enabled efficient methods of post harvest management and marketing, transformed their occupation into value added Agribusiness.

Pratibha Syntex Limited

Mr. Shreyaskar Chaudhary, Managing Director receives the Gold Trophy from Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India

For Pioneering Sustainable Organic Cotton Farming on a Significant Scale across the Value Chain from Fiber to Garment.

Their holistic, sustainable and inclusive approach has created one of Asia’s largest vertically integrated manufacturing units of knitted textile products, by involving 28,000 farmers across 475 villages over four states in organic cotton farming, and using the surplus of fair cotton trade for educational, economical and social development of the area saving annually 24,000 tons of carbon dioxide, and 146 million kilolitres of water.

CoCubes.com

Mr. Vibhore Goyal, Co-founder receives the Silver Trophy from Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India

For pioneering an innovative model that involves on the one hand, on-line engagement with students and SMS enabled learning modules to improve their employability using Internet and Mobile technology, and on the other, help companies engage and hire authenticated students efficiently.

CoCubes.com has built India’s largest student engagement and campus recruitment platform, covering over 2,000 colleges, 800,000 students and 400 corporates, providing same chance and opportunity to students from rural backgrounds and tier II-III cities as are available to tier I city students.

TATA Motors Limited

Mr. Sanjeev Garg, Head, Customer Care, (Commercial Vehicle Business Unit) receives the Silver Trophy from Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India

For Innovating a Comprehensive & Scalable “Skill Enhancement Programme”.

By enhancing relevant human skills of all involved in its outlet channel at different levels, from managers, technicians, mechanics, and drivers to owners, this programme of providing a uniform service experience to customers is unique in industries across India and globally. Using a physical model for training, alliance and networking with existing institutes, and an e-learning portal, the programme has so far trained and placed 117 engineers as TATA Certified Works Managers, 10,157 mechanics, enrolled 912 dealer workshops, adopted 74 and set up 3 driver training institutes.

Vadodara Municipal Corporation

Mr. Ashwini Kumar, Municipal Commissioner, Vadodara Municipal Corporation receives the Silver Trophy from Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India

For achieving Energy Efficiency and Cost Savings in Street Lighting.

As an innovative organization, for energy saving, step by step innovations were introduced over a ten-year period in all areas from design of lighting installation, luminary devices, microprocessor controlled time phasing of lighting to GSM based remote monitoring resulting in a system that provides 24/7 timely street lighting of international illumination standards at reduced capital, operations and maintenance costs. An innovative PPP Energy Performance Contract is being used for large-scale deployment of the system, whereby a private company makes 100% investment sharing 20% of earnings from energy savings with the corporation.

Impact India Foundation

Mr. Alok Sinha Roy, Consultant receives the Award from Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India

For Pioneering the Lifeline Express as the World’s First Hospital on a Train that meet the Health Needs of the Dispersed Rural Population of India.

The train takes services for restoring sight, movement, hearing, and correction of cleft lips and dental care to stations within the reach of rural populations, and delivers these free of cost. The Lifeline Express has medically served over 700,000 people in 135 projects across rural India.

National University of Educational Planning & Administration

Prof. Arun C. Mehta, Head receives the Award from Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India

For Designing and Implementing a District Information System for Education (DISE).

The system for authenticated and speedy collection, computerization, analysis and utilization of school-level data connects 1.36 million Primary and Upper Primary schools, across 637 districts. The system has reduced time from collection to utilization of data from 7-8 years to less than a year at the national and to a few months at the district and state levels, thereby, introducing much needed efficiency in the assessment of school-wise needs and targeting allocation of resources and monitoring their utilization. Also, by providing hitherto inaccessible information on teaching and other facilities in schools openly to public, it facilitates citizens’ interaction with school education planning and management structures.