Social Innovation Lab

Recircle’s Swachh Sustainable Solutions, Krishigati and Mudita and Radhesh Pvt Ltd win PIC Social Innovation Awards 2022

Youngsters showcase social innovations at PIC’s 10th National Conference on Social Innovation (NCSI)

Pune (Nov. 17, 2022) – Recircle’s Swachh Sustainable Solutions, Krishigati and Mudita and Radhesh Pvt Ltd bagged this year’s Social Innovation Awards given by Pune International Centre (PIC).
The winners were awarded in the urban, rural and tribal categories, respectively, in the presence of Kishor Chaukar, former Managing Director of Tata Industries Ltd;  Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar, eminent scientist and President, PIC; Dr. Vijay Kelkar, Vice President, PIC; Abhay Vaidya, Director, PIC; and Mandar Joshi, Head, Social Innovation Lab. Smt. Sangita Jindal, Chairperson of JSW Foundation, was the Chief Guest and delivered the keynote address.
Under the Recircle initiative, Swachh Sustainable Solutions works to divert plastic waste from oceans and landfills by implementing an ethical and traceable reverse supply chain for the waste. Krishigati provides technology solutions to farmers for modern and precision farming. Mudita and Radhesh Pvt Ltd upcycles the chicken waste generated in butcheries and creates woolen fibres and fertilisers.
The winners were awarded a cash prize of Rs 50,000 each and a one-year mentorship programme from PIC Social Innovation Lab. 18 finalists across three categories were selected from over 130 entries and across 20 states.
The day-long conference organised at YASHADA, Baner Road, saw various sessions on tribal, rural, and urban innovations and included presentations by the participants and interaction with various experts. Pratima Kirloskar, President, Innovations Society; Mukesh Malhotra, Chairman of Weikfield Group of Companies; and Dr. KV Somasundaram, Director, Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Social Medicine, PIMS-DU, interacted with the social innovators.
Organised by PIC, along with the National Innovation Foundation, New Delhi, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS, Mumbai), NCSI provides innovators a platform to showcase their innovations and offers them several benefits.
The Anjani Mashelkar Inclusive Innovation Award was also given away at the hands of Sangita Jindal.
In her keynote address, Smt. Sangita Jindal said that many best-known industries were born out of innovation and passion. Referring to ‘jugaad’, she said that ‘jugaad’, ‘junoon’ and ‘josh’ are the skills that India is known for. “A truly prosperous society consists of both economic and social prosperity, which is why we at JSW are a part of the ecosystem that promotes innovation. To imagine and reimagine our future, we need to stay connected to the roots,” she said.
Kishor Chaukar said it was heartening to see that away from the old concept of doing development, doing changes, or some sort of innovation in the basic production activity of a particular economic activity, today’s youngsters are stepping out and have started using technology and technologies to connect with their own service or economic activities.

9^th National Conference on Social Innovation (NCSI) organized by Pune International Centre.

Sustainability and digital tools are driving inclusive innovations and driven by these two forces today’s time are ideal for entrepreneurs to drive social impact solutions at a bigger scale opined experts at the ninth edition of the National Conference on Social Innovation organized by Pune International Centre ( PIC). Convened in association with the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), NCSI provides a platform to innovators for showcasing their innovations and facilitates collaboration between social innovators, impact investors, and CSR departments of leading corporate houses. This year the two-day conference was held virtually. 

In his keynote address, the Chief Guest Mr. Mukundan Ramakrishnan CEO and Managing Director Tata Chemicals said we are living in an age of tremendous change and opportunities. Take the example of the vaccine for Covid which took less than a year which would otherwise have taken years. It was a tremendous innovation where science has been applied for social good. Its rollout in India to cover over 1 billion shots in such a short span of time despite all the difficulties, is social delivery at a scale never done before by any other country. It was enabled by the focused efforts of many scientists, doctors, nursing staff, administrators, public sector, private sector, Government, NGOs working together. This was possible because the challenge was enormous, the need was dire, and the forces were aligned to a higher purpose and were bound by values of the common good. When such intersections happen, great innovations happen at a scale.

He added that with the kind of tools that are at hand today in terms of digital and network all over India, we can do wonders in terms of how we do social impact.

Many areas like healthcare, sanitation, water, education are key components of social impact change, he said.

What Covid has done is to accelerate the rate of change by increased adoption of tools which leads to greater access to quality and quantity of delivery. So what is driving this inclusive innovation – there are two broad forces viz sustainability and digital. Driven by these two forces, time is ideal for entrepreneurs to drive social impact solutions at scale. Social innovation entrepreneurship is the solution to many things that we see as challenges like extreme inequality, governance, climate change, environmental degradation, access to healthcare, etc. With the rise of digital and social media, new materials are leading the way to enable us to find solutions. Social entrepreneurs are key to resolving these issues as they work at the microscale and by adopting new approaches that challenge the status quo and as these approaches pathway scale we get social change.

Hailing the work being done by Pune International Centre, he added that mentorship is a key for mechanisms to make this social entrepreneurship come alive. It is critical that entrepreneurs get guidance and timely advice. The second element is ensuring companies use CSR funds as a support network for smart experimentation by creating incubation space.

Advising the new age entrepreneurs he said that we should not be daunted by the size of the challenge, but start from unit one and then scale it up. Talent and skills are key as well as the core purpose of the product and creating a culture going beyond the founders, looking up the entire journey as a learning process.

Delivering the opening remarks eminent scientist and President of PIC Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar said that NSCI is a platform for curating social innovators and has provided a platform for more than 150 innovators over the past few years. The purpose is to improve the quality of life of the poorest and marginalized societies. This initiative has spread all over encompassing the entire country. The fact that social innovations identified by PIC have impacted thousands is a satisfying feeling.

The inaugural program included the Anjali Mashelkar Inclusive Innovation Award and was given this year to ‘Sascan’ an emerging healthcare innovation company that developed OralScan, a hand-held imaging device for screening, detection, and biopsy guidance of oral cancer. Dr. Mashelkar gave an overview of the concept of the awards while Sushil Borde gave information about the progress and the impact of the initiative.

While enlightening the audience about various initiatives of the organization, Abhay Vaidya, Director Pune International Centre informed that this year we received 140 applications from 24 states literally from every corner of India. Six in each category have been selected for the finals in each of three categories: tribal, rural, and urban.

The keynote address was followed by the interaction of Chief Guest Mr. Mukundan Ramakrishnan and Dr. Mashelkar with the finalists. The finalists were felicitated with Citations. Prof. Neeraj Hatekar Executive Director, Department of Tribal Development, Government of Maharashtra chaired the tribal innovation session. Mandar Joshi, Head-PIC Social Innovation Lab was hosting the conference.

Dr. Vijay Kelkar, Vice President – PIC, thanked the chief guest and the chair in his concluding remarks on day one of the conference.

18 Social Innovators who were selected as finalists presented their innovations to the august audience of CSR heads, Impact Investors, Accelerators, and many social innovation enthusiasts.

Qonect, Urdhvam Environmental Technologies, and Green Freedom win PIC Social Innovation Award 2021

Manipur-based Qonect, Pune-based Urdhvam Environmental Technologies, and Mumbai-based Green Freedom bagged this year’s Social Innovation Awards given by Pune International Centre ( PIC). The awards were given away at the valedictory function of the 9th National Conference on Social Innovation (NCSI), a flagship event of the Pune International Centre (PIC). The winners were awarded in tribal, rural, and urban categories respectively in presence of Chief Guest and Founder Chair, Mann Deshi Bank and Foundation, Ms. Chetana Gala Sinha, Abhay Vaidya Director PIC, Mandar Joshi Head- Social Innovation Lab, PIC, Geetanjali Patil Choori Founder Energy Guru, Reema Sathe Founder Happy Roots.

The winners were awarded a cash prize of Rs 50,000 each and a two-year mentorship program from PIC Social Innovation Lab. The two-day virtual program saw 18 finalists across three categories who were selected from over 140 entries from across 24 states.

In her keynote address, Ms. Chetana Gala Sinha said that the younger generation of today has a much bigger vision of people and the planet. These young innovators will make India valuable. They are putting in the time, energy, hard work, persistence and also taking risks and the country should be proud of all of these youngsters. Our Country needs passionate people like these. Any sustainable index will be achieved only through young passionate innovators. Sharing her own experience of working with last-mile rural communities she added that I have learned a lot from ordinary women doing extraordinary things and thinking beyond themselves. Their vision may not come from books, you understand their vision with your experience of working with them.

The two-day conference saw various sessions on tribal, rural, and urban innovations which included presentations by the participants and interaction with various experts. NCSI 2021 has been organized by PIC along with the National Innovation Foundation, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS, Mumbai) and provides innovators a platform to showcase their innovations and offer them several benefits.

Gireendra Kasmalkar, Director Ideas to Impacts and member and mentor at PIC proposed the vote of thanks.

The 8th National Conference on Social Innovation was organized online by the Pune International Centre (PIC) in association with the National Innovation Foundation & Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), on the 4th & 5th December 2020.

In addition to Maharashtra, we received 100 applications of Social Innovators from 18+ states including Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Nagaland, etc. It is also heartening to know that we continue to see healthy participation from female applicants. The two-day conference recognized 18 social innovators from urban, rural, and tribal categories out of 100 entries from various sectors including education, health, and environment. Six innovators from the tribal category gave a presentation on Day 1 (4th Dec) over their innovations in different streams. 

 Mr. Shrikant Vaidya, Chairman of Indian Oil Corporation, was speaking as a Chief Guest at the conference in presence of Dr. R A Mashelkar, President, PIC, Dr. Vijay Kelkar, Vice President, PIC, Prashant Girbhane, Hon. Director, PIC and Abhay Vaidya, Asso. Director, PIC. Speakers including Mr. Shrikant Vaidya, Dr. Kiran Kulkarni, Director, Urban Development were present at the conference on Day 1.

Despite having finances to invest in industries, technical support, and availability of credit post-independence, entrepreneurial growth is yet to take off in India. To generate and accelerate the economy and create more jobs, we have to embrace innovation and empower entrepreneurship among locals particularly in the rural areas,” said Mr. Vaidya.

 “To transform the country into a USD 5 million by 2020 is a big challenge as literacy levels of 80 percent of the labour workforce is below average. We need educational and economic regulations to provide opportunities and better jobs,” he added.

 Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar said, “Due to the COVID19 pandemic lots of lives were lost and livelihoods were affected so now it is time to recover and for that, social innovation is the key. We need disruptive innovation, which is sustainable. Young India is progressing now and we have access to talent and technology, which is going to change the course of the future.”

 Dr. Kiran Kulkarni said, “Tribal are considered as underprivileged in India but the fact is that they are culturally more advanced. In Maharashtra, 9 percent of the state budget goes toward tribal welfare therefore focus on the development of the tribal is very significant.”

“We must stop material-intensive activities like mining, quarrying, and forest logging and should only promote Green growth. We should also combine matter and energy with information and go digital and stop depending on government for resources for setting up enterprises and rely on own capital, and bank loans,” said Vijay Mahajan, CEO and Director, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary studies while speaking as a valedictory keynote on the second day of the 8th National Conference on Social Innovation (NCSI) organized online by the Pune International Centre (PIC).

 Dr. Vijay Kelkar, Vice-President, PIC, Vijay Mahajan, CEO and Director, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, and Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, Abhay Vaidya, Asso. Director, PIC, Prakash Apte, Chairman, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Dr. Vipin Kumar, Director, National Innovation Foundation were present at the conference on Day 2.

Twelve innovators from the Urban and Rural category gave a presentation on the second day about their innovations in different streams.

 “We have to stop thinking in terms of jobs and opt for entrepreneurial self-employment. We need to have 10 lakh new micro-enterprises per year with an average of 10 workers, which can create employment to the extent of 1 crore every year,” Vijay Mahajan added.

 Prakash Apte said, “Article 1 of the constitution says that India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. Rural areas can be referred to as Bharat as it comprises 70 percent of the population, while the rest 30 percent of the population lives in urban areas. To be able to progress, we’ll have to enable Bharat to connect with India by providing all basic facilities including education and employment opportunities to everyone in rural and urban areas. We have to make our social responsibility.”

 The innovators will be given a chance to join the PIC’s mentorship program, which will help them scale up their enterprises through networking, understand challenges, and assist them with financial support to help them sustain.

Pune International Centre (PIC) announced winners under 3 categories including Urban, Rural, and Tribal at its 8th National Conference on Social Innovation (NCSI). Each category had 6 innovators, out of which 1 from each category was chosen as a winner.

 The Winners at the 8th National Conference on Social Innovation, under 3 categories included Nitesh Bhardwaj, Founder of Ulgulan Foundation in the Tribal category, Ayush Nigam, Founder of Distinct Horizon in the Rural category, and Shashank Nimkar, Founder of Earth Tatva in the Urban category.

 Ulgulan Foundation in Tribal category is working to create social awareness and raising local issues by using mobile films in tribal areas of Maharashtra, while

 Distinct Horizon in Rural category is innovating agricultural machinery that can double the profits of farmers and reduce GHG Emissions in 5 times lesser cost than solar panels and half the time.

 Earth Tatva in Urban category works to reduce mining for natural resources by making products from recycled ceramics under closed-loops zero-waste manufacturing process.

 The winners won a cash prize of Rs 50,000/-.

7^th National Conference on Social Innovation took place on 17^th Novermber 2019 at Yashada Auditorium. The conference started with the Anjani Mashelkar Inclusive Innovation Award (AMIIA) which had been awarded to ‘GenRobotics’ a young group of students from Kerala. We witnessed a personal message from Shri. Ratan Tata, former Chairperson of Tata group, for our innovators and the participants.

After the extensive process for selection out of 100+ applications which had been received throughout the nation, 19 innovators got selected in three categories Tribal, Rural and Urban. The innovators covered diverse field from agriculture to healthcare, education, community empowerment, vulnerable group and many more.

We had a pre-conference meet with our innovators with our session chairpersons and mentors. Prof. Satyajit Majumdar from TISS, Mumbai, delivered an insightful talk for social entrepreneurship. Mr. Pradeep Lokhande, Founder of Rural Relations shared his inspiring experience as social entrepreneur. After these two insightful sessions, our mentors helped our innovators to understand the Social Enterprise Mentorship program in detail with the success stories from the year of 2018. 

On the day of our NCSI conference, we had three sessions; Tribal, Rural and Urban. Tribal Session was chaired by Mr. Pradeep Lokhande; the founder of Rural Relations. Rural Session was chaired by Cmde. Anand Khandekar, ex-Indian Navy and ex-director of Nvidia India. Urban Session was chaird by Prof. Satyajit Majumdar from TISS, Mumbai. Our innovators impressed many people by their unique work, presentation and by showcasing their product in front of our all guests and participants. Our Tribal category winner Mr. Rajendra Prasad Moturu from Telangana showcased a unique water purifier which can help people in disaster affected areas to get clean and drinkable water. Our Rural Category winner Mr. Parthapratim Dasmahapatra from West Bengal helped us to know his unique device which measures hemoglobin without taking any blood samples.  Our Urban Category winner Mr. Mayur U Shetty from Karnataka showed his cutting edge technology for transferring vaccine without any harm with his cooling device named ‘Sanjivani’.  

We had our guest from Tata Chemicals, Thermax, RSB transmission, KPIT, Emcure Pharmaceuticals, BP Exploration, Tata Trust, TCS, Weikfield, Finolex, Aditya Birla Group, Forbes Marshall, Petronet LNG’s CSR representatives and Venture Centre, Magic Incubators, and accelerators and institutions representatives to support our program and engage with our innovators.

We had a very insightful panel discussion with Dr. V. Premnath (Venture Centre), Mr. Anil Paranjape (Infuse Venture), Ms. Alka Talwar (Tata Chemicals), Mr. Sanjay Kanvinde (PIC moderator and mentor), and Ms. Priyanka Behera (RSB Transmission). This discussion helps everyone to understand the strategical approach for collaboration with various CSR and the need of CSR’s to be open up for social Entrepreneurs for collaboration.  

The 6th National Conference on Social Innovation held on 17th Nov 2018 at Yashada Auditorium Baner Road, Pune. The chief guest for the conference was Shri Girish Bapat, Minister of Food, Civil supplies and Consumer Protection for the State of Maharashtra.

Each Invited guest was given a Kit, which included different products from past mentorship programme mentees. The Kit itself was made from flex banner, a creation of Mr. Amit Inamdar. Each Kit included the bamboo pen by Mr. Anant Vats and postcards curated by Khula Aasmaan, a platform which encourage and allows kids to exhibits their creations in the areas of art and technology.

This year, the conference was attended by not only CSR’s but also donors, investors and incubators, More than 40 organizations attended NCSI 2018, including CSR’s incubators, investors, donors, academic organizations and NGOs.

The conference was divided into three main sessions; Tribal, Rural and Urban, with a total of 16 constituent sub-themes, such as agriculture, health, sports, waste management, to name a few, six innovators presented in each session. The Tribal session was chaired by Mr. Pramod Athalye, a member of PIC and mentor of Social Enterprise Mentorship Programme (SEMP). Mr. Pradeep Lokhande, The founder of Rural Relations, Chaired the Rural session of the conference. The Urban session was chaired by Mr. Sanjay Kanvinde, a member of PIC and a mentor for the Social Innovation Mentorship Programme (SEMP).

After the extra-ordinary presentations of our innovators we had three winners in each category. In the Tribal category Mr. Ashwin Pawade, cofounder of S4S technologies won the prize for their Solar Conduction Dryer which dries horticulture produce for later use. In the Rural category Mr. Subham Singh won the prize for his straw panel board which is made from crop residue. In the Urban category Ms. Akshita Sachdeva won the prize for her product called KITAB, a mobile app which increases availability of books in multiple Indian languages for visually challenged people.

After the declaration of the winners there were a session on ‘Fostering Social Innovation’ a discussion held between CSR’s incubators, impact investors and earlier NCSI innovators and our mentees of the mentorship program.

On the second day after the conference, we had sessions with our innovators with the presence of PIC mentors, Ms. Anshu Bhartia, CEO of UnLtd India and Mr. Shirish Joshi, Independent consultant and eminent social sector researcher. The focus was on the interaction between mentors and the innovators, understanding the obstacles they face in their journey and a brief guidance on their future path. After the mentorship program our mentors also introduce our ‘Shared Service Centre (SSC-SE)’ which is being launched by Social Innovation Lab.

The Pune International Centre (PIC) organises a National Conference on Social Innovation (NCSI) every year on the 17th of November at the Yashwantrao Chavan Academy for Development Administration (YASHADA), Baner.

PIC has been organising this conference for the last four years with the objective of promoting the cause of Social Innovation and providing a fertile platform for collaboration to the Social Innovators and CSRs of leading Corporate Houses. Innovations in the sectors of Health, Education, Livelihood, Technology and Agriculture have been covered in the Conference.

To further strengthen the cause of social innovation, PIC has also reached out to grass-root innovators from all corners of the country to scout for exceptional innovations. Entries have been received from States such as Gujarat, Karnataka, Telangana, Delhi, Port Blair, Arunachal Pradesh etc.

Innovators such as Dr. Devi Shetty (Narayan Hrudayalaya), Dr. Abhay Bang (SEARCH), Dr. D.R. Mehta (Jaipur foot). Dr. Rajendra Singh (Water conservationist) have presented on the NCSI platform. CSR heads of leading companies such as the Tata Group, Bharat Forge, Praj, KPIT, Kirloskars, JSW Steel, Mahindra, Lupin, etc attend the Conference to encourage and listen to the innovators.

The Hon’ble Vice President of India Shri Hamid Ansari and Dr. Vikas Amte, Secretary and Chief Functionary, ‘Maharogi Seva Samiti’ have graced the NCSI as Chief Guest and inaugurated the Conference. PIC is honored to receive the continuous guidance and support of Dr. R.A. Mashelkar (President, PIC), Dr. Vijay Kelkar (Vice-President, PIC) and Prof. Anil Gupta, Professor at IIMA and Exec. Vice Chair of National Innovation Foundation (NIF), for the NCSI.

Last year, a new addition to the NCSI was the introduction of an Indo-China Social Innovator Exchange Program, launched jointly by PIC and the Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI), Ahmedabad. Under this program, Ms. Xie Fang from the TUFE University, China made a presentation on ‘Rural Cultural Heritage and Ways for Survival’, while Ms. Tulaji Bhavsar from Bhuj, visited China.

This year, 17 innovators present their innovations to an audience comprising CSRs, incubators and investors. The conference was inaugurated by Hon’ble Minister of Human Resource Development, Shri. Prakash Javadekar.

The 4th National Conference on Social Innovation took place on the 17th of November. Dr. Vikas Amte, Chief Secretary and Functionary of Maharogi Sewa Samiti inaugurated the conference.

The themes for the conference were Tribal, Rural and Urban innovations. The NCSI team at PIC began with an outreach initiative to reach out to grass-root innovators. PIC’s knowledge partners such as the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) extended great support to PIC for this initiative. BAIF Development & Research Foundation also strongly facilitated the outreach activity.

After a 3-staged evaluation process, 18 finalists were chosen to present at the conference and they drew representation from various regions of India such as Gujarat, Telangana, Delhi, Karnataka, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

On the 16th of November, a special workshop with a legal expert, Advocate Manoj Wadekar of Wadekar & Associates was organised for the innovators. The objective of the workshop was to inform innovators on essential legal requirements that need to be met, in order to satisfy CSR mandates and attract funding for further scaling-up of their innovation.

The 18 finalists displayed great authenticity and diversity in their presentations. They enthralled the audience with their creative ideas, passion and humour.

Around 400 people attended the conference this year. CSR representatives of over 35 corporate houses such as Forbes Marshall, the Tata Trusts, Bharat Forge, Praj Industries, KPIT, Siemens, Mahindra, Lupin, Reliance, etc were present at the conference and they listened intently to the innovators.

It was heartening to witness the positive impact of the conference when two of the innovators from NCSI-2016, Krishna Thiruvengadam and Yogesh Malkhare, received support for their initiatives and innovations from few organisations present at the conference. A formal report on the NCSI-2016 was also released at the first Social Innovation Forum (SIF), which was held in March 2017.

The day long conference started with Hon’ble Mr. M Hamid Ansari, The Vice President of India who addressed the gathering in presence of Hon’ble Shri C Vidyasagar Rao, Governor of Maharashtra and Hon’ble Shri Girish Bapat, Guardian Minister of Pune. The Vice President of India congratulated both Pune International Centre and National Innovation Foundation for pioneering this series of national conference on social innovation.

Shri Ansari said, Social Innovation was essential and was linked to ‘levels of harmony, freedom, stability and security prevailing in the society’. He emphasized that while economic progress is essential for survival and well being, it is neither a substitute nor the panacea for the social challenges that confront us.

He highlighted, Social Innovation impacts the society, but particularly the excluded, the needy, the remote and the by passed sections of our society as we race forward towards becoming a developed nation with economic indicators of scale, pace, size of our growth, innovation that leads to social and economic inclusion is going to be more and more important.

He said “I am particularly glad to see pioneering efforts of the organizers to provide a platform for conversations between the “support seekers” and those “seeking to support” as they are expected to lead to scaling up of some of the social innovations presented on this occasion and thereby accelerating the impact of such innovations”.

21 Social innovators from 8 states were the focus at PIC on 17th Nov 2015 on the occasion of ‘NCSI 2015’. In this third annual conference, the innovators focused on their innovations in the domains of Health, Education and Livelihood. From an IITian to a farmer we had significant diversity among the 21 presenters.

30+ CSR representatives from leading corporates including PIC corporate members were in the audience listening to these innovators and many of them demonstrated enthusiasm in the concluding session to take forward some of these initiatives in a manner that fits their respective corporate CSR guidelines.