New-age Innovators and Change-makers of India Recognised at the 7th Edition of Marico Innovation Foundation Awards

MUMBAI, February 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

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Marico Innovation Foundation (MIF), a not-for-profit organization in India, founded by Mr. Harsh Mariwala, Chairman, Marico Limited and executing the Corporate Social Responsibility for Marico Limited, successfully held the 7th edition of the Marico Innovation Foundation Awards. Eight organizations were recognized for pioneering business, social, start-up and global game-changing innovations.

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Held biennially, MIF Awards is a key program aimed at bringing breakthrough innovations to the fore, as well as inspiring a new generation of innovators. The event held on February 23, 2018 at Dome @ NSCI SVP Stadium, Mumbai, showcased six path-breaking Indian innovations across Business, Social and newly introduced Start-up categories. This year's MIF winners include ideaForge, Rivigo Logistics, Tonbo Imaging, Incredible Devices, Forus Health and Ecolibrium Energy. The event also saw two Global Game Changer Awards presented to IndiaStack and Reliance Jio for bringing a seismic shift in their respective industries.

The awards were graced by Chief Guest, Mr. Rajan Anandan, Vice President, Google India and South East Asia, who shared his thoughts on how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are playing a significant role in bringing about positive changes in the world.

The winners of MIF Awards 2018 presented their innovations in a crisp, inspiring story telling format, enthralling the audience that comprised of leaders within the business, social and innovation sectors, by their transformative innovations. All applications were judged on four parameters - uniqueness, commercial viability, scalability and impact generated. Based on these parameters, the winning innovations, in their respective categories are:

Business innovation category: 

• ideaForge is a pioneer in Unmanned Aerial Systems segment in India, developing class-leading, indigenous UAVs for surveillance, reconnaissance, imagery and industrial applications. ideaForge has been able to pioneer drone manufacturing in India, with 95% market share.
• Rivigo is technology-enabled logistics provider that has altered the functioning of the logistics industry. Rivigo's innovative 'driver relay' model has resulted in reduced lead time of delivery by a whopping 40-50%.
• Tonbo Imaging designs builds and deploys advanced imaging and sensor systems to sense, understand and control complex environments. Based on their innovative designs in micro-optics, lower power electronics and real-time vision processing to design imaging systems, the company is the only Non-NATO supplier to the US military.

Social innovation category: 

• Forus Health  has built an extremely light, portable device that is 1/4th the cost of its nearest competitor - to be able to detect for ROP (retinopathy) in pre-mature babies. They have gone global with this innovation with more than seven countries already using their product.
• Incredible Devices Pvt. Ltd (IDPL)'s Catheter Reprocessing System (CRS) resolves all problems related with catheter reprocessing and make them 100% patient safe. Focussing on affordable healthcare, the machine helps in reducing the cost of the catheter to 99% and increases the re-usability of catheters by 10x. Considering new catheters cost Rs. 2,500 and upward, while the recycled catheter from their machine costs Rs. 20 per use.

Start-up innovation category: 

• Ecolibrium Energy have built systems and devices based on IoT, to be able to provide predictive maintenance of huge machinery in factories. Their systems will alert factory managers 15-20 days before a machine could possibly shut down, helping factories plan downtime much in advance and improve productivity.

Global Game Changer Awardees: 

• IndiaStack
• Reliance Jio

The MIF 2018 winners were shortlisted and selected from applications from all over the country after an exhaustive out-reach program. Leading global management consulting firm, A.T. Kearney partnered with Marico Innovation Foundation as knowledge partners. AT Kearney conducted a thorough due diligence of all applications before presenting the shortlists to two rounds of Jury for each category. This year MIF's eminent Jury members as per categories comprised of:

• Social Category: Dr. Mashelkar, Anu Aga, Paul Basil, Ramji Raghavan, Anshu Gupta, Deval Sanghavi, Vidya Shah and Srikrishna Ramamoorthy
• Business Jury: Dr. Mashelkar, Ganesh Natarajan, Sandeep Singhal, Falguni Nayar, R Sundar, Rajeev Bakshi, Pravin Gandhi and Sasha Mirchandani

Commenting on the occasion, Dr. R A Mashelkar, Honorary Chairman of Governing Council, Marico Innovation Foundation, said, "The MIF 2018 Award Winners are wonderful examples of how innovation can alter the trajectory of businesses and society, not incrementally but disruptively, by being not merely first to India, but by being first to the world, not being exclusive to privileged few Indians, but by being Inclusive, thus making difference to every Indian."

Celebrating the innovation spirit in India, Harsh Mariwala, Founder, Marico Innovation Foundation and Chairman, Marico Limited concluded by saying, "This year, we received an overwhelming number of applications that reaffirm that India is blessed with innovators who possess the potential to be change-makers. Looking at our Award Winners we can see a strong theme of 'product innovations' surface. They are all technologies developed in India and are going global. It's India's contribution in a way - to the world. The MIF Award Winners are the new and young breed of innovators who are aligned with MIF's ethos of 'Inspire, Impact and Involve'. My heartiest congratulations to them."

About Marico Innovation Foundation:  

Incepted in 2003, Marico Innovation Foundation (MIF) is a not-for-profit organization in  India  executing the Corporate Social Responsibility for Marico Ltd. The organization aims to nurture innovation in the country across the business and social sectors alike. The Foundation aims to create this impact via two flagship programs: MIF Scale-Up Program: an intensive mentorship program that solves for critical business challenges faced by innovative enterprises generating impact on the Bottom of Pyramid (BoP) and MIF Awards: one of  India's  pre-eminent biennial recognition platforms that recognizes unheralded innovations impacting the community at large.

Media contacts:

Bhakti Dalal: Communications and PR Consultant +91-9819118807 [email protected] 

Nupur Joshi: Manager, Marico Innovation Foundation +91-9920019738 [email protected]