Innovators today, leaders of tomorrow

Many more innovators were honoured on March 9 at the hands of Dr RA Mashelkar, Chairperson of NIF at Rashtrapati Bhavan. I will share brief information about them but I should mention a new initiative of SRISTI of awarding projects done by diploma and engineering students through Gandhian social tech innovation awards. These awards highlight what Dr Mashelkar calls as More from Less for Many. In addition, SRISTI social tech awards and tech edge awards will also be given on April 5, 2012 at RJMCEI, IIMA. We might also launch on that day a company for taking ideas of innovators forward.

Now about the remaining awards: Rahul Patel of Bihar got consolation awards for control of insect pests in agricultural crops. Mogjibhai Damor from our state was honoured for sharing community knowledge about herbal formulation for treating fractures in animals while Boya Pedda Rajanna of Andhra Pradesh was recognised for herbal medication he discovered that cures bacterial mastitis in animals. This is a very serious problem in animals, a medicine for which was developed by SRISTI Sadbhav Sanshodhan natural product lab and NIF and is currently being tested by certain companies. But we should not rely on one solution for such widespread problems. Nature does not like uniformity, which is the reason why she quickly develops resistance to chemical-based solutions.

C Senthil Kumar, Tamil Nadu was recognised for developing a pleasing to the eye and functional wood stove. Wazeer Hayath of Karnataka made a very important contribution by developing a stick for blind people. This stick has met needs of almost 1,000 visually impaired people. It speaks out when there is an obstacle and even recognises a water puddle for its user. Rajamani of Tamil Nadu has developed a digital starch-measuring scale for cassava. PS Vinod of Kerala has developed an amphibious car and Harkesh Kataria has thought of a rain protector for clothes.

We also gave partnership awards to some of the outstanding individuals, institutions, fabricators and other innovative individuals. Koushik Choudhary, a fabricator from Ahmedabad and Janak Raghuraman have helped in scaling up the Assam windmill developed by Mehtar Hussain and his brother Mushtaq in Pipavav port area.

We also appreciate contributions of Srishti School of Design, Art and Technology, Bangalore for adding value in ideas of children as well as others. We thank Anand and Anand IP firm for helping us in filing dozens of patents for poor but knowledge-rich people.

Chirag Patel of Unique industries, Ahmedabad has helped fabricate children's activities while IIT Guwahati has mentored network activities in north-east and value addition in grassroots innovations. I am sure other IITs will join in soon. Some already have done so (IITB, IITD, IITGn and IITM) and some others are watching us.

Let us hope that ideas, innovations, institutions and ideologies of inclusive development will help us overcome the mood of the nation which otherwise seems to be losing its creative coherence.

The author is a professor at IIMA