· Recognized as one of the winners in Health Category for NASSCOM Social Innovation Forum – India’s Largest Social Innovation Honours
· Won for its innovation – Wound Healing Analytics & Prediction (WHAP) device
· Wins national recognition and industry mentorship to help scale-up its impact
Mumbai, February 21, 2018: NASSCOM Foundation, in collaboration with industry leader Mphasis, today announced the winners of the tenth edition of the NASSCOM Social Innovation Forum – a platform that fosters innovative use of technology to create sustained social impact.
The largest Social Innovation Honours in India, NSIF received over 1900 applications this year out of which, the final winners were chosen after going through a rigorous two level Jury process in the categories of Education, Accessibility, Healthcare, Financial Inclusion, Environment and other socially relevant areas.
The announcement was made at the World Congress on Information Technology – The Olympics of the global ICT Industry. The winners were felicitated by Shri K.T. Ramarao, Cabinet Minister for IT E&C, MAUD, Industries & Commerce, Mines & Geology, Public Enterprises and NRI Affairs, Telangana.
Mumbai based organization, Epocare Pvt. Ltd. was one of the winners in the healthcare category. Emergence of social innovators like Epocare speaks volumes of Maharashtra Government’s efforts towards creating an ecosystem to nurture and support innovative social solutions.
Epocare Pvt. Ltd.was chosen as a winner for developing a wound healing analytics & prediction (WHAP) device. The device uses a custom software integrated with hardware to collect and interpret data and send it over cloud using Wifi Module. The cloud based data repository is equipped with a machine-learning algorithm, which predicts the healing potential of ulcers and forecasts healing time over the period. It has a database synchronization functionality at the back end and whenever the new data is available in a remote device, new data gets synced to cloud server and the reports get generated automatically.
The complete list of winners included:
| Category | Organization | Innovation |
| Education | Pi Jam Foundation* | A low cost pocket sized computer for students to solve real world problems |
| Saajha* | Enabling parental and community participation in schools to improve learning | |
| Accessibility | Blank Solutions* | Sparsh, a portable braille board that converts digital text content to its equivalent braille output. |
| Thinkerbell Labs* | Annie, an audio-tactile device that makes self-learning and classroom teaching of Braille possible. | |
| Healthcare | Empathy Design Labs Pvt. Ltd. | IOT based wearable patch for pregnant mothers to screen and monitor pregnancy. |
| EPOCARE Pvt. Ltd. | Wound Healing Analytics & Prediction (WHAP) device | |
| Financial Inclusion | Danamojo | India’s first widget for customizable donation platform designed specifically for NGOs |
| DonateKart | India’s first crowdsourcing platform where people can donate in kind to charities instead of money | |
| Environment | StrataEnviro Pvt. Ltd | A IOT ready device to control outdoor air pollution |
| Other Social issues | Schemopedia (Karma Online Ventures LLP) | A one stop online platform for searching, applying and accessing all Government and Non-government schemes and benefits |
* The winners who will be receiving INR 10 Lakh each as catalytic grants.
The jury that selected the winners comprised of many renowned industry stalwarts including Debjani Ghosh, President Designate, NASSCOM; Padmaja Ruparel, President, Indian Angel Network; Srikanth Karra, CHRO, Mphasis, P. Balaji, Director-‐Regulatory, External Affairs and CSR, Vodafone India, and Deepak Maheshwari, Director -‐ Government Affairs, India & ASEAN, Symantec.
Mphasis has been a constant supporter for enabling Technology for social Good. Commenting on the occasion, Srikanth Karra, CHRO, Mphasis, said,”Two areas that I am passionate about are accessibility and innovation. The sweet spot of social innovation is more encouraging and invigorating than ever before. The quality of innovation we saw from across the country is phenomenal and I am proud of Mphasis’ association with NASSCOM Foundation on this. I am delighted to see the NSIF award becoming an aspirational one for the technology innovators in social space”.
Reflecting on this amazing journey, Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation, said, “For the last ten years, NSIF has been the corner stone of Tech4Good in India. It has seen ideas take shape into industries, people change to adapt to new innovative technologies, and technologies create impact to change economies. Growing from strength to strength, NSIF today is an ecosystem of 2000+ social innovations, awarded 80+ social innovation projects, helped mentor 20+ innovations through its support to scale program and already given over INR 1 Crore in catalytic grants. This is just a start and we hope that our journey inspires development of new frugal innovations to fulfil our ultimate goal of creating a truly Inclusive India using technology for good. We are glad to share this dream with a lot of our partners through the years and would like to thank our long standing partners Mphasis for all the support they have given us”.
Talking about this year’s entries and the winners he added, “It is great to see that social innovators are not shying away from the new technologies but instead are embracing them. Most of the entries we received this year were using new age technologies like Internet of Things, wearables, predictive analysis and self-learning algorithms. Each chosen winning innovation today has a promise to create a country wide sustainable impact and we hope that NSIF can help them make this happen.”
Through the collaborative force of social impact through ICT created in the last 10 years by NASSCOM Social Innovation Forum, NASSCOM Foundation hopes add momentum to the technology wave across the country.
