- 1. 1Indias Most Innovative CompaniesBangalore: "An innovation
is one of those things that society looks at and says, if we make
this part ofthe way we live and work, it will change the way we
live and work", said Dean Kamen. There are fewIndian companies that
are trying to bring in change in the lives of the people through
their innovation.Lets take a look on ten such innovative
companies.Shaadi.comOne of the most trusted matrimonial services of
the world, Shaadi.com helps the people to find theirsoulmates.
Shaadi.com was founded in 1996 by Anupam Mittal with the simple
objective to provide asuperior matchmaking experience by expanding
the opportunities available to meet potential lifepartners. The
company has introduced more than 1.4 million couples.HarVaFor
expanding Indias outsourcing industry to rural areas, Ajay
Chaturvedi founded HarVa. HarVameans Green for the villages and
stands for "Harnessing Value" of rural India. The company is a
rural startup that primarily focuses on SkillDevelopment, BPO,
Community based farming and Microfinance. HarVa is one of Indias
first rural BPOoperations. It trains young rural people, especially
women, to develop technical skills from data entryto software
testing. It also offers a Rural XPOs, Rural LPO, Rural MPO, Rural
KPO, Rural IT Outsourcingand Consultancy.
2. 2VNLVNL makes a solar powered global satellite mobile (GSM)
and broadband system that helps operatorsreach them profitably. The
GSM is cheap, green and efficient. In six hours, the equipment can
beassembled onto a home rooftop with no tech expertise required and
provide service to 2,000 userswithin a two-mile radius.The WorldGSM
is the first commercially viable GSM system that is independent of
the power grid. Itruns exclusively on solar power and requires no
diesel generator backup. VNL was founded by RajivMehrotra, a
veteran of the telecom industry, in 2004.A Little WorldALW (A
Little World) is the developer of ZERO, Indias first domestic
payment system with specificfocus on reaching out to masses with
lowest available communication infrastructure. ALW was foundedby
Anurag Gupta for conceptualization of ZERO for branchless banking,
and in bringing key banks andindustry majors to support the
implementation Financial Inclusion in villages. The Mumbai-based
techshops 2003 incubation of Mchek, a mobile-to-mobile payment
platform, was later adopted by thestate of India and Airtel before
it was spun off into a stand-alone business three years later. 3.
3Its ZERO is bringing about real difference in the lives of the
underserved population in India byproviding access to banking and
financial services at their doorstep.Gram VaniGram Vani Community
Media is a social development organization based in India, building
open-source technologies for community media in rural areas. It
aims to develop telecommunication andmedia solutions that give a
greater voice to people at the grassroots, and enable closer
engagementbetween people and larger institutions in the development
sector including governments, NGOs andcorporate.It began its
operations in 2009, and runs a product under their flagship which
is a radio automationcalled GRINS (Gramin Radio Inter-Networking
Systems). It is also expanding its offerings to video andcontent
distribution systems, to enable distributed applications for
agriculture, healthcare andeducation in rural areas.Narayana
HrudayalayaA vision of Dr. Devi Shetty, Narayana Hrudayalaya is
founded by one of the Indias oldest constructioncompany "Shankar
Narayana Construction Company" in 2001. Located in the city of
Bangalore, it isone of the worlds largest pediatric heart hospitals
and has created a record of performing nearly15,000 surgeries on
patients from 25 foreign countries. 4. 4It is currently working to
extend its clinical expertise to cancer with the launch of Biocon,
a 1,400-bedfacility providing treatment for head-and-neck, breast
and cervical cancers. Narayana Hrudayalayastarted Tele-medicine in
2002 to cater mainly to the rural populace in the country.Godrej
GroupGodrej brought a revolution in the rural India by introducing
its ChotuKool. What Nano is toautomobiles, ChotuKool is to
refrigerator industry. Established in 1897 by Ardeshir Godrej, who
was alawyer-turned-locksmith, today it has seven major companies
with interests in real estate, FMCG,industrial engineering,
appliances, furniture, security and agri care. They have presence
in more than60 countries and ensures the service excellence that
one can count on.Godrej also has a philanthropic arm that has built
schools, dispensaries and a residential complex fortheir employees,
and the trust established by the company still invests in
education, healthcare andupliftment of the
underprivileged.FabIndiaA platform to bring in the products that
are made from traditional techniques, skills and hand-basedprocess
to the worlds growing urban middle class. FabIndia connects more
than 40,000 craft-basedrural producers to modern urban markets,
thereby creating a base for skilled, sustainable andemployment and
preserving Indias traditional handicrafts in the process. 5.
5Through its website and 136 retail stores, it sells clothing and
products for the home, all of which aresourced from villages across
India. FabIndia was established in 1960 by John Bissell, an
Americanworking for the Ford Foundation. FabIndia established "The
FabIndia School" in 1992 in Pali district ofRajasthan, which is a
co-educational, senior secondary school with more than 600 students
including40percent girls who are provided with a subsidized tuition
fees and offers them scholarships.Digital GreenDedicated to
improving the social, economic and environmental sustainability of
small farmerlivelihood, Digital Green aims to raise the livelihoods
of smallholder farmers across the developingworld through the
targeted production and dissemination of agricultural information
throughparticipatory video and mediated instruction through
grassroots-level partnerships.The company lets the villagers select
the film themselves demonstrating new agricultural techniquesand
after checking for accuracy, it screens them for the farmers using
handheld projectors.TataTata made the dream come true for lot of
Indians by launching the rupee one lakh car "NANO". WithNANO, Tata
brought the recognition for India asa technology leader and not a
mere low-cost hub known for cheap labour. Tata Group was laid in
1868by Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata. Today, Tata group comprises over
90 operating companies in sevenbusiness sectors: communications and
information technology, engineering, materials, services,energy,
consumer products and chemicals, and it has operations in more than
80 countries. 6. 6CourtesySiliconindia 7. 6CourtesySiliconindia
