Innovation trainer-Alok Asthana

Retd Col Alok Asthana ,is an ex army leadership trainer, now a freelance corporate consultant-trainer on matters relating to innovation.He operates from Mumbai and apart from training in enterprise innovation, he also offers:

• Short workshops to schools to teach creativity/inventive thinking/good thinking to children.
• Product development ideas, mostly incremental, to SMEs.

Details:  http://www.innovatorsandleaders.com/index.html

Kitchen Tools 2011 International Design Competition:

Invent a new kitchen tool - a new vegetable peeler, a new pasta machine, a new meat tenderizing tool... whatever kitchen tool you can improve on, either by starting from scratch or by making a significant improvement to a tool that's already in use.

World Kitchen invites you to redefine the kitchen tools for preparing, cooking and serving food, making them more space-efficient, time sensitive and versatile for today’s home chef and their cooking needs. Whether your design helps a cook to shape pasta, marinate meats, create a stir fry, flip burgers, or dish out soup, think about the cultural heritage you want to reflect and define its modern reality as you identify and design your concept. 

When preparing your submission, World Kitchen would like you to consider:

• How could a tool suit your cultural heritage with the world’s new realities to improve the home chef’s experience?
• Are there new activities, needs and opportunities for efficiency and better quality to enhance the chef’s accomplishments?
• Can you make meal preparation and serving easier, faster, more affordable, and more space-efficient?
• Do we need new tools, even ones that serve more than one function, to increase versatility and value to the consumer?
• Last date: January 7 2011 

Siemens Ecovatives Awards 2010

Siemens and IBNLive.com are instituting a hunt for India’s EcovativesTM – initiatives by Organizations who are combining protection to environment, reducing harmful effects to the environment with innovations to create leadership positions. These could range from the use of green energy to ecological protection, from lowering pollution to recycling of resources, and more.Last date 25th October. Only Large and Medium scale industries are eligible to participate. Contact person: Tanushree Rana 9920161186 Award Categories           EcovativesTM Responsible   Initiative to reduce harmful emission of toxic waste, effluents, bio-medical waste, harmful gas etc. in:   Air OR   Water OR   Land     EcovativesTM Low Energy   Initiative to reduce usage of non-renewable sources of energy like   Coal   Petroleum     EcovativesTM Conservation   Initiative to reduce wastage of (efficient usage of) natural resources     EcovativesTM Building   Building (for business unit) contributing towards reduction in usage of water, energy and generation of solid waste.     EcovativesTM Earth Care   Initiative taken by a corporate for improving the ecosystem external to its regular business and not with the interest of earning profit.			L

Holst Centre - an independent open-innovation R&D centre

Holst Centre is an independent open-innovation R&D centre that develops generic technologies for Wireless Autonomous Sensor Technologies and Flexible Electronics. Holst Centre was set up in 2005 by imec (Flanders, Belgium) and TNO (The Netherlands) with support from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Government of Flanders. It is named after Gilles Holst, a Dutch pioneer in Research and Development and first director of Philips Research.

Holst Centre offers students opportunities for Master Thesis internships for 6 months. See the topics for these internships.

Philips Electronics invites industrial designers to design better Ironing Steam generators

Steam generators consist of a conventional iron and a base. The iron is connected by a hose to a boiler (inside the base) in which steam is built up under high pressure, which is connected to a water tank. Steam generators produce significantly more powerful steam than regular steam irons, and therefore offer the following consumer benefits:

• It cuts your ironing time by half, and is effortless thanks to the powerful steam.
• It is very convenient, since consumers can iron for longer ironing sessions without having to refill the water tank.
• Since the steam is generated by a separate generator, the iron itself is very light and easier to use.

Goal:
The primary goal of this design competition is to help design a truly innovative Steam generator for ‘2015’ with a focus on Philips’ brand promise of “sense and simplicity”. 
last date: 10th November 2010.

AUTM Scholarships for New Technology Transfer Professionals

The AUTM Foundation announced Scholarships for New Technology Transfer Professionals from Developing Economies. The Scholarship provides up to $US 4,000 in travel and related support to enable the recipient to attend an AUTM sponsored or co-sponsored meeting or educational course in support of their professional development in 2011. see Details

Gartner's 2010 Hype Cycle

Gartner has examined the maturity of 1,800 technologies and trends in 75 technology, topic, and industry areas. Each of the 75 individual Hype Cycle reports provides a snapshot of a key area of IT or business. Senior executives, CIOs, strategists, business developers and technology planners should consider these technologies when developing emerging business and technology portfolios. The "Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies" is the longest-running annual Hype Cycle, providing a cross-industry perspective on the technologies and trends that IT managers should consider in developing emerging-technology portfolios.

Read:  http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1447613

 

 

Sanitary pad made from banana tree fibers

Elizabeth Scharpf is the founder of Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) has been awarded the 2010 Curry Stone Design Prize for development of a locally produced and distributed sanitary pad that enhances women’s dignity and allows better access to education and occupation. Elizabeth has an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MPA in international development from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a BA from the University of Notre Dame. 

Details: http://currystonedesignprize.com/recipients/2010/sustainable_health_enterprises

Martin Innovations "Chair-A-Table" safe patient handling system

The  US Department of Justice and the Department of Health & Human Services recently released a joint report on medical care for individuals with mobility disabilities. The report stresses that examination of a dependent patient while in a wheelchair does not meet the standard of “equal medical services”. Martin Innovations has answered that call with technology that eliminates the manual aspect of the lift or transfer from wheelchair to exam table.

The Martin Chair-A-Table is manufactured in the United States. It has the industry’s highest weight capacity at 1,000 lbs, and carries a full warranty of 5 years. The Chair-A-Table is also perfect for everyday use as an exam table, with 8 points of power articulation including power lift, power backrest, power footrest. View more detailed information on the Martin Innovations Zero-Lift Patient Transfer System.

The product is available for sale and technology ready for license.

33 Major Fair Tales from Startups that died.

There is more to learn from failures than success and this was an useful compilation. The list includes one , which I am familiar with as it was supported under TePP when I was in-charge. 

I remember the IONLAB team  and was excited to support them. Was it a mistake to support this start-up? I have often articulated that objective of TePP is not picking winners but providing innovators `freedom to fail'.  I believe, we did the right thing in supporting this young innovators and wish them all success in their future venture(s).

Innovation is risky but failures are not reported in government programs (investing in innovation) - wish there will be more openness on this to better our learning of the processes.

New on-line tool to facilitate green technology patent searches

WIPO has launched an on-line tool that is linked to its International Patent Classification (IPC)
system to facilitate searches for patent information relating to environmentally sound
technologies (ESTs), as listed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC). The tool, the “IPC Green Inventory”, contains some 200 topics that are directly
relevant to ESTs, and each topic is linked with the most relevant IPC symbols.In addition to being linked to the IPC system, the IPC Green Inventory is hyperlinked to WIPO’s PATENTSCOPE® search service to automatically search and display all “green” international applications filed under the PCT.The IPC Green Inventory will help in identifying existing and emerging green technologies, as well as potential partners for further R&D and commercial exploitation. To access the IPC Green Inventory, and for further information on how to use it, see:
http://www.wipo.int/classifications/ipc/en/est/ipc_patentscope.html

Licese from Ohio University for SOMAVERT(R) (pegvisomant for injection)

Ohio University will be issuing an RFP to cover rights in SOMAVERT(R) (pegmisovant). Please email allinson@ohio.edu if you would like to be included on our distribution list.

Brussels Innova

Brussels Innova, the international exhibition of Inventions, Research and new Technologies is scheduled from November 18th to 20th.Brussels Innova brings together experts in patents and property rights of new inventions as well as innovation-consultants & advisors to inventors. One of them is Sophie Racquez of The Idea Monopoly®, who professionally guides inventors from idea to market-launch. She is a partner of Brussels Innova and organizes the conference program in which she'll take part as a speaker herself. 

Villgro's UNCONVENTION conference

2nd edition on UNCONVENTION is scheduled in Chennai on December 3rd &4th. 

Details: http://www.villgro.org/unconvention/

Innovations from Russia

Siberian International Innovative Business congress held in September attracted  over 1000 experts/ innovators. contact Valentina for information on Russian innovations/ technologies.

Contact Person:

Valentina Storozhkova,

the Head of International stand area

Siberian Internationmal Innovative Business Congress

t./f.  007 383 227 11 44, mob 007 913 928 2738 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              007 913 928 2738      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

g20@innsib.com

www.innsib.com

skype: valentina.storozhkova

What international climate agreements should the world community make?

Share your idea on Climate Lab http://climatecolab.org/web/guest/home

It may reach the Policy Makers.

Ideas4all

ideas4all was created by Ana María Llopis, founder and CEO 1993-2000 of Openbank –Grupo Santander– (first Internet bank in Spain and second in Europe when it was launched). Ana María has ample experience in new technologies and the Internet, and was president of Viaplus, an on-line shop of the period, and Razona, a Financial Consulting firm in the Internet, as well as Executive Vice-President of Indra, the most important Computing company in Spain. Ana María has a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in Engineering in Materials Science, Cum Laude, and is a Summa Cum Laude graduate in Physics from Maryland University, majoring in Mathematics.
Join the mission to collect a million ideas.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I10kavNviSk

Kindling Idea Management software

Arc90 is New york based consultancy firm  working with clients seeking to infuse innovation. In 2009 they released Kindling an Idea collaboration tool.There are many more projects in pipe line -see arc90Lab.

Apart from Commercial firms, Kindling is also used by US govt to improve Veterans Benefits. Take a free trial:

 http://www.kindlingapp.com/free-trial/

Chrystalized- message on Innovation from Costa Rica as Comic Book

Enjoy the cartoon and get inspired

International Week of Action against EU-India FTA

Want to join the protests? one more day left. Check at:

http://www.dnpplus.org/news.php

Apps for development-competition by World Bank

This competition is run by World Bank- may be first of its kind. Analyst Kit Eaton says the intention behind this is that entrants will craft apps (for any platform from Web-based to smart phone to tablet PCs) that use World Bank data in creative and useful ways, either producing innovative analysis tools or visualizations. Anyone can enter, as a team or alone, and the overall mission is to "reduce global poverty by putting important data into the hands of those who can make a difference in developing countries."

In order to be considered for prizes, submissions must be original software applications solely owned by the entrant(s), which must use at least one of the World Bank datasets found at http://data.worldbank.org. The text descriptions in the contest submission must accurately describe the functionality of the application, and all submitted materials must be in English, or include an English translation.

Important dates

Submission Period: Start: Oct 07, 2010 12:00 PM EDT End: Jan 10, 2011 05:00 PM EST

Judging Period: Start: Jan 31, 2011 12:00 PM EST End: Feb 28, 2011 05:00 PM EST

Public Voting Period: Start: Jan 31, 2011 12:00 PM EST End: Feb 28, 2011 05:00 PM EST

Winners announced: April, 2011

Details: http://appsfordevelopment.challengepost.com/

Facilitating global outreach of European and Indian innovation clusters

Event towards "Facilitating global outreach of European and Indian innovation clusters" is planned coinciding with TCI Global Conference at MDI, Gurgaon, on 1 December 2010. The objective of the event is to stimulate and facilitate global outreach of European and Indian innovative clusters through in particular: 

• Increasing mutual awareness on cluster policies, development methods and management practices;
• Facilitating in Europe and in India access to and contact with the appropriate cluster stakeholders;
• Fostering research, innovation and industrial cooperation between clusters in Europe and in India.

For more information, Contact person: Mr. Nikos Pantalos, DG Enterprise & Industry,  Nikos.Pantalos@ec.europa.eu

Measuring Entrepreneuship in India

SBA ,USA released a new study  that analyzes entrepreneurship at the global level using a new index called the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI). This index captures the contextual (qualitative and quantitative) features of entrepreneurship in 71 countries.

Porter identifies a factor-driven stage, an efficiency-driven stage, and an innovation-driven stage, and he adds two transitions.The factor-driven stage is marked by high rates of agricultural self-employment. Countries in this stage compete through low-cost efficiencies in the production of commodities or low value-added products. Sole proprietorship—i.e., the self-employed—probably account for most small manufacturing firms and service firms.To compete in the efficiency-driven stage, countries must have efficient productive practices in large markets, which allow companies to exploit economies of scale. Industries in this stage are manufacturers that provide basic services. The efficiency-driven stage is marked by decreasing rates of self-employment. When capital and labor are substitutes, an increase in the capital stock increases returns from working and lowers returns from managing.The innovation-driven stage is marked by an increase in knowledge-intensive activities . In the innovation-driven stage knowledge provides the key input. In this stage the focus shifts from firms to agents in possession of new knowledge. The agent decides to start a new firm based on expected net returns from a new product. The innovation-driven stage is biased towards high value added industries in which entrepreneurial activity is important.

India scores poorly at 0.23 ,gets 53rd rank with China marginally better at rank of 40. China and India are efficiency-driven countries and are not yet fully in the innovation race.United States has a huge lead in NEW TECHNOLOGY, India is catching up fast;  the difference between the United States and China on the TECH SECTOR variable is not very large. What is interesting is that entrepreneurs in neither India nor China seems to be afraid of failure. 

However, strange are scores for start-up skills (0.08) and networking (0.03)-  are we so bad? 
Read : http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs370tot.pdf

Innovator Rajaram Bojji

WIPO introduced case studies sharing experience of innovators and from India the cases include that of inventor Rajaram Bojji. He is well known in India yet the case makes interesting reading. He is not a programmed researcher but a railway engineer working in operations. His patent Anti Collision Device was valued by PWC at one billion US dollars and he donated the rights to Konkan Railways. In a nation short of Heros- he is my HERO.

Read WIPO case:
http://www.wipo.int/ipadvantage/en/details.jsp?id=2592

2010 Cyber International Genius Inventor Fair in Korea (CIGIF 2010)

Korea Invention News is opening and hosting the first ever international invention fair in Korea called: 2010 Cyber International Genius Inventor Fair in Korea (CIGIF 2010). They are inviting invention geniuses and talents from all over the world. 

Indian innovators can submit application online thro Indian Innovators Association, representing India. The participation fees for students are$120/- and for other independent innovators $150/. The Indian Innovators Association is NOT charging any service fee.

For details see: http://www.kinews.org/

For information contact: President Soung-Mo Hong,Korea Invention News,kinews7@gmail.com

Startup Exit Strategy Thought Piece V7.6

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Startup Exit Strategy Thought Piece V7.6

View more presentations from VentureArchetypes LLC.

iBridge-online community of university researchers

The iBridge^SM Network provides the centralized online source for research and innovations.Through the iBridgeSM Network, researchers and those seeking innovations can easily search for and obtain the resources they need.

Winners of Google’s Project 10to the 100

150000 ideas received from 170 countries, 16 put on vote . Final 5 were rewarded with $10 million. 

see details:   http://www.project10tothe100.com/index.html

WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM by Steven Johnson

Peter Alwin wins Electrolux Design Lab 2010 Contest with ‘The Snail’ Portable Induction Heating Concept

Peter Alwin, studying at the National Institute of Design in India, was awarded first place in the 2010 Electrolux Design Lab competition. The Snail, Peter’s micro induction heating concept, beat a field of 1,300 entries and seven other finalists at 100% Design, London 23rd September 2010.

Read more

Discovery Driven Growth

In this book, Rita McGrath and Ian MacMillan show how your company can achieve ambitious growth targets without  hugely expensive and uncontrolled gambles.The techniques presented are appropriate for new growth initiatives: new ventures, new businesses, new product lines, new franchises, new locations, new markets, joint ventures, strategic alliances, and even potential mergers.

One of the framework given in the book is Opportunity Portfolio, a visual map of major initiatives going on in the firm. It looks at initiatives in the context of uncertainty , market and organizational uncertainty Vs Technical and execution uncertainty.Core enhancement launches characterized by low uncertainty on both parameters are projects that improve the profit streams and growth of the core business.Investments in improving operational efficiency ,upgrades in IT, supply chain etc fall in this category. At medium level of uncertainty we have Platform launches and Adjacency, requiring substantial investments to establish firm on new growth area on scale. Positional options are minor investments to develop options for future.Scouting options on the other hand deal with market uncertainties.   Stepping stones are projects with high uncertainty both in technology and market.

The book if full of practical steps on corporate venturing.

Genpact NASSCOM Social Innovation Honours 2011

The annual Honours aim to showcase projects that demonstrate best practices through exemplary use of ICT in areas of social transformation.Last date: 1st October 2010;

Details: NASSCOM

Q Prize

Qualcomm Ventures is awarding $750,000 in seed capital via a series of six regional business plan competitions and one grand-final competition. Eight finalists will be selected in each region and the winner given the opportunity to receive $100,000 in convertible note funding plus an opportunity to compete for an additional $150,000 in our Grand Prize Competition. last date: 14th December 2010.

URL: http://www.qualcomm.com/ventures/qprize/2010/

Metamorphosis 2011

Metamorphosis aims at establishing marriage between innovative excellence and sheer business acumen making complimentary thinking a reality.The Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club (EVC) at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad invites Students to participate in this unique contest.  The contest is funded and co-partnered with Foundation for MSME Clusters (FMC) and IKP Knowledge Park .

URL:http://www.isb.edu/metamorphosis/index.html

Eureka 2010

Eureka! 2010, Asia's Largest Business Plan Competition is inviting Entrepreneurs from all over the world. Eureka! is second largest in the world in terms of participation, resources and prize money.
50 Top teams will be shortlisted and provided mentoring from Venture Capitalists, Angel Investors and experts in various fields of Industry. After refining their B Plans, top 8 teams out of 50 will be shortlisted and provided further mentoring, and the top 3 will be chosen as winners. Last date 4th October 2010.
For more info, please visit: http://www.ecell.in/.

Technovation 2011 awards

There are awards for `Best electronic product of the year', `Start-up to watch', `Technovisionary' and `Technomentor'.Last date:15th November 2010.Apply on line:
http://isaonline.org/technovation_2011/index.html

The Great Brain Race by Ben Wildavsky

In the background of our plans to create Innovation Universities, this book serves as useful reference document compiling and analyzing similar attempts made across the nations to create Elite Institutes.

Students and faculty at research institutes everywhere are conscious that they are in direct academic competition that extends beyond campus gates. What the global universities promise to do , as nations make sizable investment in education , compete to nurture human capital and send students and researchers back and forth to universities around the world, is to go one step further: from brain drain to brain circulation to brain growth.

 The three most important higher education trends in the last half century- mass access, growing reliance on merit principle and significantly greater use of technology- will all be accelerated by globalization. The book examines the phenomena of branch campuses,   almost all established by Western universities, which have proliferated largely in Middle East. Of the 162 such campuses, notable are castles built in Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia. They are liberally funded by the Kingdoms with grants to parent US institutes, bonus to faculty and all construction undertaken by state. The cost per student is estimated at half million US dollars per year - not a model that can be emulated in India. The other extreme is Chinese strategy of long term contracts with researchers of British universities. The Britishers know the contracts are one sided, the aggressively ambitious China will extract what it can from each partnership. This also cannot be replicated in India. The third model is distance / online education that is demand serving and cannot expect to produce Elite Institutes.

Elite institutes are by definition exclusive and as nation we need to ask the question- do we want exclusive institutes with huge endowments, full autonomy and where only the merit matters?

USA invests billions in new energy Research and VCs take manufacturing to China

US Secretary of Energy Steve Chu is concerned that the research funded by state might instead produce manufacturing efforts overseas while the US economy failed to capitalize on DOE’s investment. Billion dollar question "how to ensure that innovative research funded through entities like the new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) is taken up by venture capitalists and companies to effect economic transformation in the US".
Read: nature.com

'Dance Your Ph.D.' Finalists Announced - ScienceNOW

Have U attended a presentation of PhD thesis in Science. See the difference when presented in dance form.
'Dance Your Ph.D.' Finalists Announced - ScienceNOW

Design Clinic Scheme for MSMEs

The scheme aims at improving designs in 200 clusters with design sensitization workshops and support for 100 student designers , 300 professional designers. NID is the nodal agency. Contact:

Shashank Mehta, shashankatniddotedu

The Deadly Corruption of Clinical Trials

Carl Elliot, Bioethics Professor exposes clinical trials and raises fundamental question -When you risk life and limb to help test a drug, are you helping science—or Big Pharma?

This case is from USA on testing anti psychotic drug on mentally disturbed patient. The picture shows mother and son- son died and mother received legal notice from University. What is happening in India?

Read the story:

http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/09/dan-markingson-drug-trial-astrazeneca?page=1

Omnivore Capital

Omnivore Capital backed by Godrej invests in agro tech start-ups at early stage.The team includes Atish Babu of Nexus Venture partners, Mark Kahn of Gogrej Agrovet. Focus areas:  

   Agricultural Financial Services,  Agriculture Services, Animal Science, Aquaculture & Mariculture, Biofuel Biotechnology, Farm Equipment, Plant Science, Water management etc .

Investment will be $1M to $3M in Series A/B rounds.

Details: http://www.omnivorecap.com/Omnivore_Capital/Investments.html

The Innovations for Everyone contest

VW and Natgeo bring this competition. Volkswagon will reward each of 3 winners with a cheque of Rs 3 lakhs. Films of 3 initial winners will be showed on National Geographic Channel and viewers will vote for the best. The final winner will take home Volkswagon car.

last date: 18th October 2010.

URL: http://www.innovationsforeveryone.com/Home.aspx

Open Innovation at Medtronic

Medtronic, manufacturer of Pacemakers invites `ideas' from independent innovators. Check for procedure at:

http://www.medtronic.com/innovation/idea-submission/procedures.html

LG Cubes Design Innovation awards

Designs invited from design students/ professional or design enthusiast. Min age 18 years. Designs can be for use at Home, Office or Travel under categories Health, Energy, Entertainment, Comfort & Usability. There are Mega prizes separate for Students and Professionals. Last  date 30th Sept 2010. check Details:

Drinking water from Alaska

We may soon be buying pure drinking water brought all the way from Alaska.

Read the announcement:

 http://www.s2cglobal.com/2010/07/s2c-global-announces-india-world-water-hub/

International Investor Form:Destination India 2010

Genius Incubator, UK is organizing an International Investors Forum: Destination India on November 11th and Smart Money & Genius Ideas on November 12th at Taj President, Mumbai.

Day 1 will bring together key decision makers from the European and Indian PE and VC diaspora to debate and define the future of venture investing in India. Day 2 will showcase hand-picked investment opportunities to global investors and HNWIs. Details:

http://destinationindia2010.com/home/agenda

India Future of Change

In a world that is fast globalizing and is supercharged with information, it calls for innovative efforts on behalf of the change leaders to look, sound and feel different. ‘India – Future of Change’ is one such effort that seeks to emphasize India’s position as a catalyst of change.

The three-year India Future of Change Contest Series is a multi-disciplinary contest series across schools in India and Overseas.

The purpose will be an exchange of ideas about emerging India’s present perception and future plan of action. It will be, apart from an academic exercise, a livecwire discussion between the youth and established professionals from the field . Knowledge Partners include Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) – Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), Industrial Design Centre (IDC) IIT - Bombay supported by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
URL: http://www.indiafutureofchange.com/contests.htm

ACM Challenge of Code 2010

ACM ( Association for Computing Machinery) Bangalore launches "Challenge of Code" which will celebrate and award innovative/ quality projects in the open source domain.

• Organizations can submit ideas online at http://ideas.intuit.in/
• Partcipating organization should assign a Project Manager to administer the project.
• ACM Bangalore will notify the project manager of acceptance.
• Selected organizations can create their projects on Intuit’s Brainstorm platform.
• Individual developers and programmers than vote on the Intuit platform to work with a particular organization leading to the formation of teams.
• If the organization finds the individual competent enough to work on the project then the organization invites the individual to work on the project and the participants are notified of acceptance.
• Participants get familiar with the organizations they would be working with
• Participants start working with the concerned organization on the official start date of the challenge
• ACM Bangalore will provide the platform for the participants to work
• Participants and organizations give midterm gate reviews and evaluations
• Final work will be reviewed by the judges selected by ACM Bangalore team and the best entries will be awarded as determined in the sole discretion of the Judges. 

Technologies from Russia

The Russian Technology Transfer Network (RTTN) was founded in 2002; it is an association of 68 Russian Innovation Centres from 25 regions of Russia and CIS, specialized in technology transfer area.See technologies on offer at:
http://www.rttn.ru/profiles?type=2&lang=eng

Barefoot college,Rajasthan

The Barefoot College has been pioneering solar electrification in rural, remote, non-electrified villages, since 1989. The College has demystified solar technology and is decentralizing its application by making it available to poor and neglected communities. Fabrication, installation, usage, repair and maintenance of sophisticated solar lighting units is placed in the hands of rural, illiterate and semi-literate men and women . 

Read: http://www.barefootcollege.org/sol_approach.asp