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.
The Anjani Mashelkar 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 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 winner becomes a part of the coveted portfolio of the foundation and gets access to funding, markets, acceleration, research and AI development, outreach and the customary prestigious prize from Dr. R A Mashelkar. An eminent jury selects the winner through a rigorous evaluation process.
