The Innovation for India Awards move to the next step of the process!
Wishing all our reader’s a great start to a wonderful new year. As you probably know the Innovation for India Awards closed with over 450 applications in September 2011. December 2011 saw the first round of Jury meetings. Our Knowledge Partner, Bain and Co have shortlisted the entries through a rigorous assessment and the Jury has had a chance to do one round of review and selection. The Jury is made up of 8 eminent innovators and thought leaders from India. Read more details here about the Jury.
The innovations are being assessed on 3 main criteria – Uniqueness, Impact and Sustainability. The first round of assessment has lead to 47 entries being shortlisted and considered for the 2012 Innovation for India Awards. These shortlisted entries were presented to the Jury with details on how each of them score on the key criteria.
To shortlist over 450 applications into a rich pool of 47 potential winners is no mean feat and though we can’t share any specific names or identifiers with you right now, we can give you an idea of the nature of innovations that seem to be making the cut.
Within the Business applications, large scale innovations that address a massive market gap with services, technology and products seem to have impressed the Jury. Being cost effective, especially efficient, easily adoptable, exhibiting a potential to expand and scale are some clear characteristics of the shortlisted entries.
Within the Social sector, exhibiting large scale impact in numbers or developing a model that has the potential to be highly scalable seems to be a criterion for selection. Developing inclusive models that are sensitive to cultural differences and break through language barriers while still creating a significant impact are being considered.
Within the Public sector entries, all the shortlisted entries seemed to exhibit clear, transparent and tangible impact that was effective and timely. Building effective public-private sector partnerships was a clear indicator of success and most of the models show a huge potential for scale.
One overlapping characteristic of most of the shortlisted applications is the use of technology. Many of the applications indicate that organizations have either developed their own technology or modified an existing technology to meet a specific need. Technology innovation has the potential to make any product or service cheaper, more adoptable and efficient, scalable and easily replicable. And in a rapidly growing country like India – application of technology to scale the impact of an innovation seems to be an underlying trend in many of the applications that are making the cut.
Dr. Mashelkar, Chairman of the Marico Innovation Foundation defines Innovation as the Successful Exploitation of a New Idea. And in many ways the shortlisted candidates represent ideas that have not only demonstrated uniqueness – but are also clearly reflecting the ability to grow and create large scale impact.
We know you are keen to learn the names of the shortlisted applications and winners but we still have one more round of Jury meetings to go before selecting the winners! The winners will be announced at the Innovation for India Award ceremony in March 2012.
The Awards ceremony is a much awaited biennial event in Mumbai and entry is by invitation only. The event brings together Industry Leaders, Innovation Champions and all the Finalists. This time the Awards ceremony is also going to have a few ‘open seats’ reserved for enthusiastic members of the Innovation Ecosystem in India. Stay tuned to the blog, Facebook page and Twitter handle for more information on how you can get an exclusive invite to the award ceremony. Hope to see you there!
