Innovation for India Awards is MIF’s biennial program that aims to showcase and celebrate currently hidden, potentially game-changing Indian innovations, offering them a getaway to recognition and a symbol of excellence in innovation.
2010
Business
Reliance Industries is India’s largest business conglomerate. It has pioneered the exploration, extraction, and production of oil domestically by making a significant deep-sea discovery of gas reserves in the Krishna Godavari basin—the KG D6 Block—in a record-breaking 6.5 years. This, against the global average of 8-10 years, making it the world’s fastest green-field deep-water oil development project. Discovery and development costs were also nearly 30% lower than global average. With the KG D6 project, Reliance laid a great foundation towards securing India’s energy needs via domestic oil and natural gas exploration.
Business
TutorVista Global is a highly reputed online student tutoring platform. An ed-tech pioneer, it took the market for in-person academic tutoring and coaching online, offering personalised virtual services to school and college students.
Business for Social
Tata Chemicals Ltd and The Energy Resources Institute (TERI) collaborated to undertake cleaning and recovery of Malara, a solid waste dump site. This collaboration greened Malara through the use of bio-fertilizers and bio-remedial techniques. For the first time in the world, a highly alkaline and saline site was recovered to successfully develop a green cover with a living ecosystem.
Social
Goonj is a not-for-profit organisation that addresses various aspects related to disaster relief, humanitarian aid, and community development with clothing and household material as its central tool. Through its initiatives, Goonj collects surplus clothing and other household items from urban areas and distributes them among impoverished and marginalised populations in rural areas thus creating a continuous pipeline of resources from urban to rural areas. This model has set an example worthy of emulation by other NGOs and village communities in different contexts.
Social
PRS Legislative Research is an Indian non-profit organisation established to make the Indian Parliament more transparent and participatory. Through its work, PRS has become the first port of call for credible information on Parliament and Legislation for Members of Parliament (MPs), journalists, and citizen groups alike.
Public Services
The Gujarat government’s Jyotigram Yojana Jyotigram – Power and Irrigation Reform is a pioneering management system for electricity and groundwater, whereby electricity use is intelligently managed by having separate feeder lines for agriculture and non-agriculture use. This bifurcation allows electricity supply to be rationed through the day at set times for agriculture for ~8 hours and provides 24 hour electricity supply for domestic, commercial, and industrial use.
Public Services
Defence Institute of High Altitude Research (DIHAR) is an entity established by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation with the mandate of researching technologies and solutions to be deployed at cold and arid terrains in high altitudes. In one of its various initiatives, it has brought the Army, state departments, private players, NGOs, and local inhabitants together, to design and implement an inclusive model for socio-economic development in Ladakh by providing a common platform of technology.
Global Gamechanger
Bharti Enterprises, an Indian multinational conglomerate, operates across telecommunications, manufacturing, insurance, real estate, hospitality, and food sectors. Airtel, its flagship company, spearheaded India’s telecom revolution and remains a significant player, offering diverse services spanning wireless, mobile commerce, fixed-line, broadband, DTH, and more—pan India.
