Grand Jury for CII Industrial Innovation Awards 2021 was comprised of Mr. S Gopalakrishnan, Past President, CII; Prof. Y S Rajan, Former Chairman NITM and Former ISRO Professor, Prof V Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi, Prof Pankaj Chandra, Vice-Chancellor, Ahmedabad University, Prof Devang Khakhar, Professor, IIT Bombay, Dr Himanshu Rai, Director, IIM Indore, Prof Gagandeep Kang, FRS Professor, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Prof Soumitra Dutta, Founding Dean, Cornell University, Prof UB Desai, Founding Director, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Prof Rishikesha T Krishnan, Director, IIM Bangalore, Mrs. Jaya Panvalkar, Chairperson, Board of governors SVNIT, Surat
The Most Innovative Company 2021 – Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. made a breakthrough by launching first to market complex generic, and that too for multiple markets. It has helped serve unmet needs through COVID portfolio & differentiated generics. Created a 2X product pipeline and output using innovative R&D, manufacturing and digital & analytics adoption.
Top Innovative Company (Large) in Manufacturing –
- Reliance Industries Ltd. has developed a novel adsorbent (RELAD- TF) and adsorption process developed for on-line purification of thermic fluids, developed for first time in the world.
- Tata Steel Ltd. has developed a ‘First-of-its-kind’ 5 tons per day CO2 capture plant from Blast Furnace gas commissioned at Tata Steel Jamshedpur with the provision for utilization of captured CO2 in steel making and wastewater treatment.
Top Innovative Company (Medium) in Manufacturing – Saankhya Labs has developed Broadcast Radio Head as next-gen low power ‘cellularized’ Digital Terrestrial Transmission system for uniform reception of digital TV signals.
Top Innovative Company (Large) in Services – Afcons Infrastructure has developed the Atal Tunnel at the crucial & strategic Manali-Kargil-Leh route. It enables all-weather connectivity, medical facilities and access to all the facilities for the villages and people.
Top Innovative Company (Medium) in Services – Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India (MBRDI) has introduced the world’s first Megawatt Charging Connector Assembly for fast charging of electric vehicles.
A Special Award was also conferred to WIPRO in Large (Services) category for their special innovation- TopGear a new age crowdsourcing-based delivery model with 70K+ community members that thrive on the ‘gig way of working’.
Another Special Award was also accorded for Tata Consultancy Services for fostering Innovation through Industry-Academia collaborations.
Under the Most Innovative Research Institutions category, IIT Roorkee is the winner. This is followed by IIT Madras and INCOIS respectively.
In the category of Other engineering colleges, the winner is Kumaraguru College of Technology, followed by Thiagarajar College of Engineering and subsequently, Paavai Engineering College.
Thiagarajar Polytechnic College wins the award in Polytechnic category.
Top Innovative Research Insitution (IITs and the like)- IIT Roorkee gets the award for developing innvovative visco-elastic Energy Dissipating Link Elements for Earthquake resistant housing construction, Nitrogen-Doped Reduced Graphene Oxide (N-rGO) for High Performance Supercapacitor and Novel hybrid adsorbent for simultaneous removal of arsenic and fluoride from contaminated water.
Top Innovative Research Institution (Other engineering colleges): Kumaraguru College of Technology develops innovative Eco-friendly Sanitary Napkins from Natural Fibre, as a win-win solution for both women and Environment.
Top Innovative Research Institution (Other engineering colleges): Thiagarajar Polytechnic College (TPT)’s innovations of Smart Dache and Fuerza-Smart Electric Motorcycle have been beneficial to the Public, Farmers, Agricultural Sector, Construction Industry, etc and have also served the society during the pandemic.