HYDERABAD: Infosys Foundation, the CSR arm of Infosys, announced the winners of the third edition of the Aarohan Social Innovation Awards. These awards, established in 2018, aim to reward individuals, teams, and NGOs for creating solutions for social good.
The winners were shortlisted from a pool of over 2,400 submissions.
The winners in the healthcare category were Subrahmanyam Prasad Muddam and Akitha Kolloju from Hyderabad who developed ‘nLite 360’, a portable, standalone, and battery-powered smart phototherapy device that provides customised treatment for severe and dynamic jaundice conditions.
Seetharam Muthangi from Bengaluru won it in the education category for developing ‘Smart Vision Glasses’, an artificial intelligence-based assistive device that helps people with visual disabilities identify objects and people, gauge distance, detect currency, read books and manuscripts in Indian regional languages, among other things.
Shelter Associates, an NGO from Pune created ‘One Home One Toilet’, a data-driven model focused on facilitating sanitised household toilets for underprivileged urban women. This was in the women empowerment category. These three were awarded Rs 50 lakh each in prize money.
Five other social innovations won a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh each. They include:
Swaasa – An artificial intelligence platform that can be used for the screening and diagnosis of respiratory diseases, created by Narayana Rao Sripada, Manmohan Jain and Venkat Yechuri in Hyderabad.
SickleCert – A cost-effective and accurate point-of-care test for sickle-cell anaemia that can also be used in prognosis and treatment setup, developed by Prof. Sai Siva Gorthi, Arun Balasubramanian, Rajesh Srinivasan, and Yatish Prasad Dasari in Bengaluru.
Portia – A self-contained portable oxygen generator providing a continuous, uninterrupted supply of medical-grade oxygen during pre-hospital or pre-ambulatory medical emergencies without any reliance on electricity, batteries, or a skilled healthcare resource, developed by John Joy and Sanjay K Pillai in Bengaluru.
Emvólio – A portable, battery-powered refrigeration device for last-mile transport of vaccines, developed by Mayur U Shetty in Manipal.
Modha Pedal Operating Machine – It aims to eradicate chronic knee pain and lower back pain issues faced by women handloom weavers, empowering the longevity of their weaving careers, developed by Sivakumar Modha in Hyderabad.
“The Aarohan Social Innovation Awards celebrate innovations and empower social innovators by helping them scale up and impact more lives,” said Salil Parekh, chairman, of Infosys Foundation.
Sumit Virmani, trustee, of Infosys Foundation, said, “We laud those who have worked to create a better future for those in most need of the support. We hope that several others are inspired by the Aarohan Social Innovation Awards.”
