Rural India powers innovative biz ventures….Abantika Ghosh
New Delhi: When Keralabased engineer Nelvin Thomas set up his company, it coincided with the height of recession. Hence, he and his partners decided to concentrate on devices that would save money for companies. And, it was the beginning of an artificial intelligence-based power system that saves 40% energy, and has now won Thomas worldwide recognition. His product is all set to be marketed in the UK and the US. He is on his way to Finland to represent India as one of the top 50 global innovators, having been adjudged by the World Bank.
Abhishek Sinha is no biologist, but he was always fascinated by the eco-system. No wonder, he took a fancy for neighbourhood retail shop, which markets everything from soaps to SIM cards, and decided to integrate that into a banking system. This helps a local grocer in rural India to become a human ATM, thanks to the use of a cellphone. Jointly founded along with his brother, his firm has signed agreements with State Bank of India and ICICI Bank.
Seventeen years ago, as a student of microbiology in Pune, Mrinmayee Bhusan was touched by the plight of one of her relatives, who had started feeling low because of post-menopausal unwanted hair growth. This led her start work on an herbal cream to inhibit hair growth, which she has since perfected into a nanotechnology-enabled version for targeted action.
These three were among the 30, who on Thursday won the innovators award given out by the department of science and technology along with Lockheed Martin under the India Innovation Growth Programme that was started in 2007. The programme initiated to ensure commercial uptake of innovative technologies had received around 2,000 entries. From non-humid air-coolers to low-cost tests to detect eye-diseases to home test kits to test the presence of proteins in urine, the selected innovations sought to bypass financial and attendant constraints. Many of them had been designed keeping in mind Indian conditions.