Relentless in its efforts to identify hidden entrepreneurial innovations with a purpose, CavinKare and MMA jointly conducted the 9th edition of Chinnikrishnan Innovation Awards today in a distinctive contactless manner. The coveted award aims to shine the spotlight on budding entrepreneurial ventures for their uniqueness, benefit to people and scalability from across the state of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

This year’s awards were conferred upon 3 Innovators in the Innovation Category and 2 in the Great Idea Category, for their cutting-edge breakthrough. Mr. Sanjay Kirloskar, Chairman and Managing Director, Kirloskar Brothers Ltd presided over the event as Chief Guest and awarded the winners.

For the first time in its nine years journey, the award property was conducted in a true virtual environment from end-to-end. In the wake of COVID 19, CavinKare and MMA jointly opted to host the award property by bringing together the jury members and Chief Guest to confer the awards upon winners on a virtual platform. Further amplifying its grandeur, CavinKare and MMA seamlessly integrated digital and technology to package the function in an intriguing manner catering to a global audience.

C K Ranganathan, Chairman and Managing Director, CavinKare Pvt Ltd, said, “The pandemic has pushed all of us to truly innovate and make the impossible seem possible. With the advent of technology in today’s digital world, we are happy to continue our journey of discovering hidden entrepreneurial gems that add great value to the society, people, and industry as a whole.”

“This time has also presented itself as an opportunity for us to take these innovations to a global audience in a very coherent manner. I congratulate all the winners and encourage them to strive harder in their business pursuit,” Ranganathan said.

Ravichandran Purushothaman, President – India Region, Danfoss Industries Pvt Ltd & President MMA, said, “MMA partnered with CavinKare in hosting this prestigious award and also in identifying the prospective nominees for the award.”

“The entire process of the award including the jury meeting was organized online due to the pandemic and this in itself is a great innovation by CavinKare and MMA, which has been recognized as the best management association in the country for 11th time in a row,” Purushothaman added.

Commemorated in the memory of Late Shri R Chinnikrishnan and to celebrate his revolutionary innovation, Chinnikrishnan Innovation Awards was instituted in the year 2011 and has recognized 28 small-scale businesses for their innovative practices. Winners of the innovation awards are also mentored by CavinKare to provide support on marketing, finance, designing, packaging, R&D and HR.

Introduced recently, the ‘GREAT IDEAS’ category aims to recognize and foster the next big idea, which can become a business opportunity and scalable in a reasonable time frame. A special recognition award was conferred upon Ms Sruthi Babu for developing Sahayatha, a smart wheelchair for assisting mobility impaired people.

The call for nominations process received 314 applications from across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, where the nominees were interviewed under various stringent guidelines streamlined by process advisor E & Y.

The distinguished panel of Jury that joined virtually from across the region to select the winners of this prestigious award comprised Mr Santhanam, Chairman & Managing Director, Saint Gobain India Pvt Ltd, Mr Satyakam Arya, CEO & Managing Director, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles Pvt Ltd, Mr Anand Pandey, CEO, L & T Infrastructure Engineering Ltd, Mr G V Anand Bhushan, Partner, Chennai Head, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co., Dr Prof L S Ganesh, HOD, Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras, Dr Rekha Shetty, Managing Director, Farstar Distribution Network Ltd and Mr R Senguttuvan, CEO, ITC Ltd, Packing and Printing.

The following entrepreneurs were awarded for 9th CavinKare-MMA Chinnikrishnan Innovation Awards 2020: