This year witnessed projects that focused on challenges such as security for women, e-learning solutions, and financial inclusion. The eight winning projects have been handpicked by the Grand Jury, comprised of India’s corporate leaders and strategists, including:
S. Ramadorai, Vice-Chairman, Tata Consultancy Services Limited and Grand Jury Chairman
Ganesh Natarajan, Vice-Chairman and CEO of Zensar Technologies, Co-Chair of National Knowledge Council, Member-Chairmen's Council of NASSCOM
Jaithirth (Jerry) Rao, Chairman, Value Budget Housing Development Corporate of India Pvt. Ltd. and NASSCOM Foundation Chairman
Prof. M.S. Ananth, Visiting Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IISc, Bangalore and Former Director, IIT Madras
Rama Bijapurkar, Expert, India’s Consumer Economy and business-market strategy
Expressing her gratitude towards the jury, and appreciating the passion of social innovators in India, Rita Soni, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation said,”The enthusiastic response from applicants is truly encouraging. It is exciting to see the way technology is being innovatively used to walk that last mile and make development more meaningful across all sections of society, year after year. We would like to thank the jury who has supported us from the preliminary stage, through the grand finale. These projects are a reflection of an inclusive and socially developed India – innovations that make us responsible individuals, organizations and communities. This year has been exceptional as some of the projects covered topics such as women safety, which need immediate attention in our country.”
“In Genpact’s view all the participants of NASSCOM Social Innovation Honours 2013 are winners,” said Mr. Mohit Thukral, Senior Vice President Genpact. “Each one of them is leveraging information and communication technology to drive inclusive growth in areas where it is greatly needed. This award platform serves as an important link between the social transformers and other stakeholders, including corporates to scale these innovations to drive maximum impact.”
Here is a look at the winning projects that stood out at the NSIH 2013
Category | ICT-led Social Innovation by Government Body
Winner| Project Name-SAKSHAM" - Scholarship management system, National Informatics Centre, Lucknow
About the project| First project in the country, using IT based initiative for electronic transfer of scholarships directly to the bank account of beneficiaries. ‘Saksham’ is a comprehensive, online, end-to-end service delivery oriented solution that patronizes students and monitors their growth throughout the education life cycle.
Category | ICT-led Social Innovation by a Corporate -
Winner| Project Name-YES Money Domestic Remittance Service, YES Bank
About the project| SMS based service designed for large segment of migrant workers having no KYC but bank accounts in their home towns, enabling them to transfer money to their families in their places of origin. This service leverages Payment Technology platforms to facilitate remittance service through Business Correspondence Agents.
Category | ICT led Social Innovation by Social Enterprise
Winner| Project Name-Okekey, Eko India Financial Services Pvt Ltd
About the project| A simple, secure, low-cost, strong two-factor transaction authentication and encryption mechanism of transacting for low income and low literacy level populations, using a mobile phone, that only requires the user to be number literate to ensure formal financial services like savings, remittances, credit or insurance.
Category | ICT led Social Innovation by Individual/ Group
Winner| Project Name-Stipator (Bodyguard), by Anuj Jain, Ratnesh Desai, Richa Yadav and Sivaraman Krishnan
About the project| A mobile app that lets a commuter get tracked while being on the road; posting the location details at regular intervals on popular social networks that can help the commuter’s family/assigned person keep track of the journey.
Category | ICT led Social Innovation by Multi Stakeholder Partnerships
Winner| Project Name-Livelihoods 360, by ConceptWaves Software Solutions and Naandi Foundation
About the project| A comprehensive produce management technology solution designed to be universally accessible using a basic J2ME mobiles. It leverages best in class cloud and mobile computing capabilities to revolutionize the crop estimation, collection, processing and farmer payments value chain. The solution provides useful data for business reporting, logistics management, decision making and crop research.
Category | ICT led Innovative Social Concept by Students
Winner| Project Name-The D Labs, by Devesh Kumar, Deepali Sinha, Amit Kumar Sharma and Abhishek Kumar, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra (Deoghar Campus)
About the project| Software + eye tracking hardware combination to address Dyslexia by analyzing the data and creating a bundle of applications and games, using AI Algorithms, for interactive learning.
Category | ICT led Social Innovation-UNICEF Special Recognition Award
Winner| Project Name-IVRS based monitoring system, Mid-day meal authority, UP
About the project| A unique process innovation through which real time, grassroots level data is collected systematically from over 1,50,000 schools spread throughout U.P. on a daily basis. This web based real time MIS provides for transparency and immediate action in problem areas and also ensures daily meals for approximately 125 lac children in over 1.5 lac schools in U.P.
Category | Category | ICT led Social Innovation by Social Enterprise
Certificate of Appreciation| Project Name-Education Micro Clouds, ZAYA (Formerly Teach A Class)
About the project| NomadEDU, an all-inclusive education wireless Micro-cloud, that leverages online education in remote areas to enhance learning. This Micro cloud bypasses the lack of internet infrastructure and also power supply in these regions. Each Micro Cloud has a 10-hour power supply, is mobile, plug-n-play and is pre-loaded with high-impact educational resources and teacher-training curriculum.
Category | ICT led Social Innovation by a ‘Not For Profit’ Organization
Winner| Homelink/ Missing Child Search Network, Don Bosco Forum for Youth at Risk
About the project| A Web based software tool to enhance the service delivery for children at risk more effectively and efficiently. Homelink captures the information of children / youth at risk to document their profile and to use the data to influence policies related to the Young at Risk at the state and national levels.
Category | ICT led Social Innovation by Individual/ Group
Certificate of Appreciation| Project Name-Mango Reader, by Jagdish Repaswal
About the project| A cloud based offering for enhanced learning for children, which can be accessed anytime, anywhere with the use of HTML5. Mangoreader aims to bring books to life by making them interactive, engaging and fun, using videos, quizzes, games, animation, audios, collaboration, sharing, discussions and providing a better learning experience.
