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.