Inclusive innovation includes the excluded by deploying disruptive high technology, scalable products and services often through breakthrough business models. It ensures access equality despite income inequality.
Such innovations have to provide equitable value propositions to all and not just a few- often requiring ultra-affordability. So, in a way, inclusive innovation is nothing but ‘affordable excellence’ in action.
The Anjani Mashelkar Foundation was established in 2011 by Padma Vibhushan Dr. R A Mashelkar. Named after his mother, the foundation aspires to pole-vault the inclusive innovation movement by accelerating such innovations and creating an ecosystem for them to thrive.
Anjani Mashelkar Foundation is recognized under Section 80G of India’s Income Tax Act 1961.
Anjani Mashelkar Prize (formerly known as the Anjani Mashelkar Inclusive Innovation Award) is an initiative by the Anjani Mashelkar Foundation, instituted by Padma Vibhushan Dr. R. A. Mashelkar in 2011. The Prize is being offered for the past 12 years to the best innovators of the country with a motive to recognize and reward such innovators who develop high technology solutions for the excluded members of society.
The prize is named after Dr. Mashelkar’s late mother, who raised him facing many hardships as a poor, uneducated widow. In spite of her own circumstances, she always wished to do something to improve the quality of life of resource-poor and excluded people.
This is an annual award given to an individual or an organization for a prototyped innovation or a commercialized product or service. This award presents an opportunity to spur and fuel innovation for the benefit of the excluded sections of society in order to ‘include’ them in the mainstream. Most importantly, it will value solutions that represent ‘affordable excellence‘, breaking the myth that ‘affordability’ and ‘excellence’ cannot go together.
The selection process for Anjani Mashelkar Prize is transparent and involves an eminent Jury comprising of stalwarts across all walks of life – bringing together a rich amalgamation of experiences and outlooks towards innovation.
