Home
Know Us
Objectives
Mission
Activities
Contact Us
| Five Grassroots Innovators from India Selected as Finalists for the Prestigious Asian Innovations Awards 2005. |
| Five grassroots innovators from India have been selected as finalists of the prestigious Asian Innovations Awards 2005. Twelve innovators have been short listed as finalists from across Asia for the awards. The Asian Innovation Awards are presented by the Asian Wall Street Journal on an annual basis and this is the eighth year of the competition. These awards are presented to companies or individuals who have developed new ideas, methods or technologies or have applied existing knowledge in creative and new ways to improve quality of life or productivity. The criteria used for evaluation were level of creativity, degree of innovation, quality of execution and the potential impact on quality of life or productivity. The winners for the rd will be announced on September 27, 2005 at an award ceremony in Singapore. |
| The grassroots innovators from India who have made it to the final round of the Asian Innovations Awards are: |
| 1.Mr. Amrutbhai Agrawat from Gujarat who has developed a simple but extremely useful modification in the conventional pulley used for drawing water from deep wells by providing a ratchet mechanism. This holds the rope in position while drawing water, and as a result, the person drawing water can let go of the rope midway to catch her breath without the risk of the rope loosening and the bucket falling down. This simple innovation in the design of a pulley can result in drudgery reduction for millions of women who draw water manually from wells on a daily basis. 2. Mr. Mohammad Saidullah from Bihar who has developed an amphibious bicycle, which can operate on land as well as water. The impact of this innovation can again be extremely high given that conventional bicycles can be easily modified to become water worthy and can be used to cross ponds and other water bodies. The same can also be used as an effective and widely available flood relief vehicle. 3. Mr. Yusuf Khan from Rajasthan who has developed a machine that digs out groundnut pods leftover in the soil after the harvesting operation. As much as 20% of the groundnut crop output gets leftover in the soil after the main crop is harvested. This has to be collected manually, which is a very inefficient and tedious process requiring about 50 man-days to pick one hectare. The machine can do the same in one day. 4. Mr. Sanket Chitagopakar and Mr. Prashanth Harshangi from Karnataka who have developed a modified stick for the visually challenged with obstacle sensing capabilities. The stick can sense water puddles, manholes and physical obstructions with different alarm signals and also has an anti-theft alarm system. |
| All the five innovators have been awarded for their innovations at the national level by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) (www.nifindia.org). While Mr. Amrutbhai Agrawat was awarded in the First National Award Competition, the other four innovators were awarded as part of the Third National Award Competition of NIF. The Fifth National Award Competition of NIF is underway and many innovations and traditional knowledge entries have already been received from across the country. Interested persons willing to participate in the competition can send in their entries to the National Innovation Foundation, P.O. Box 15051, Ahmedabad, Gujarat or email their entries to campaign at nifindia.org |
| About National Innovation Foundation (NIF): Making India an innovative and creative society and a global leader in sustainable technologies is a very big challenge. To meet this challenge, the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), Ahmedabad, an autonomous body was set up in March 2000, by the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India to provide a nurturing platform for augmenting unaided green grassroots innovations and traditional knowledge practices developed by local communities and individuals to solve their problems (www.nifindia.org). NIF is committed to making India innovative by documenting, adding value and protecting intellectual property rights of the contemporary unaided technological innovators as well as outstanding traditional knowledge holders on a commercial as well as non-commercial basis. Dr. R. A. Mashelkar, an eminent scientist and Secretary, DSIR and Director General, Council of Science & Industrial Research, India, is the Chairperson of NIF. |
| Under the guiding vision of Executive Vice Chairperson, Prof. Anil K. Gupta of IIM-A and the efforts of a dedicated team, in a short span of four years, NIF has been able to scout more than 51,000 innovations and traditional knowledge practices from over 360 districts of India. Out of which, 14 technologies have been successfully commercialized. Five Grassroots Innovators short listed for Asian Innovations Awards 2005 |
