With strong leadership, entrepreneurs and innovators can make their innovations sustain for a longer period, said Suresh Krishna, Chairman, Sundram Fasteners and TV Sundram Iyengar & Sons.
Addressing the 7th edition of the CavinKare-MMA Chinnikrishnan Innovation Awards 2018, Krishna said that while India needed a lot of innovators and people with new ideas that are patented, they should make their innovation work over a longer period.
To sustain innovation, the vehicle — a company — needs a good leadership that can make the product grow not just within the life span of the innovator, but over a longer period, he said. The event honoured three small-scale entrepreneurs and three individuals for their ideas.
This year, the Great Ideas category was expanded to recognise individuals capable of transforming lives with their ideas. “This award, established in 2011, recognises budding entrepreneurs with extraordinary talent. It is extremely inspiring to see the increase in the number of applicants over the years,” said CK Ranganathan, Chairman and Managing Director of CavinKare.
The entrepreneurs awarded under the Innovations Category included TM Veerabahu, founder and Managing Director, Cybernoid Healthcare; Gokul Shrinivas, founder & CEO, MinionLabs India; and M Murugesan, Director, Rope Production Centre.
The awardees under the Great Ideas category were Saranya Sriram for her zero-energy electro chemical desalination cell that uses animal and human urine to remove toxic hexavalent chromium from leather tannery and textile industrial effluents. S Ramani won the award for his manually-operated washing machine, and K Mohanraj for a protection gadget for women.