WIN Foundation Innovation Support programs aim to 

1. Bring Science to Society: support Researchers, Innovators and Startups, to  bring innovative technologies, products and business models from labs to communities for better quality of lives and liveliohood, and help create sustainable and scalable social impact. 
2. Bring Society to Science: Inculcate a scientific approach among communities through experience of trying and evaluating new technology, products, and develop strong curiosity,  capability and attitude to try new and adopt products and processes to improve their lives and livelihoods
   

WIN Foundation has supported several initiatives towards above, including:

1. WIN Innovative Product Market Validation Support Program 
2. National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition (NBEC 2019 and NBEC 2020)
3. Work together to promote Social Entrepreneurship with ecosystem partners like Social Alpha, Aspire Labs, iCreate, etc.

1. WIN Innovative Product Market Validation Support Program 

WIN, under its own WIN Innovative Product Market Validation Support Program,  supports startups with social impact products, in the critical product prototype ->trial -> refinement stage and market validation with actual user communities, through  NGO partners who are in close touch with target communities. This is to achieve the twin objectives of

1. enabling the communities to try innovative products which can lead to improvement of their quality of life and
2. enabling the startups to get critical inputs on product and market. We have received very good response from both start-ups and community partners.

We have already supported several startups under this program under WATSAN and MCH.

WIN Foundation, with  iTIC Incubator at IIT Hyderabad,  jointly  launched the WIN Challenge – Track 1, in Jun’21.  The focus area of this challenge is `Child Growth and Health Monitoring, using AI /ML’, a critical technology to tackle malnutrition in India. The jury members of `WIN challenge’ selected two candidates, who will work under the iTIC pre-incubation program to develop technology for Child Growth and Health Monitoring, with WIN Foundation fellowship support.

WIN Challenge document: bit.ly/WINdocument

The pre-incubation program at iTIC will offer following:

• Structured mentoring under pre-incubation program
• Lateral entry for grants from iTIC-IIT-Hyderabad, for upto INR 10 lakhs
• Technical mentorship support
• Access to IITH labs and infrastructure
• Co-working space for upto 3 people
• Pilot testing opportunity with WIN Foundation

WINNERS :

Event News coverage links:

• https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/education/iit-h-winners-declared-in-contest-on-finding-child-growth-solutions/article35149773.ece
• https://www.pallikkutam.com/edu-news/child-growth-health-monitoring-ai-solution-to-be-supported-by-iith-incubator
• https://www.thehawk.in/education/itic-incubator-at-iith-win-foundation-us-selects-two-candidates-to-develop-tech-for-child-growth-health-monitoring-236968
• https://indianewsrepublic.com/iit-h-winners-declared-in-contest-on-finding-solutions-for-childrens-growth/366228/
• https://business-journal.in/education/iit-h-winners-declared-in-contest-on-finding-child-growth-solutions-business-journal/ 

WIN Foundation is happy to again partner with C-CAMP, for The National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition 2022, for the domains of (i) Water and Sanitation and (ii) Maternal and Child Nutrition. WIN Foundation has been a category partner in NBEC for the last 3 years.

NBEC is organized by the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP), and is sponsored by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, along with several reputed partners. It has emerged as the premier national talent competition to identify and reward some of the most promising deep tech ideas in all domains of the Life Sciences.

NBEC-2022 brings with it INR 16 Crore in cash prizes and investment opportunities for start-ups and individuals and up to INR 10 Lakh cash prizes for Student Teams. What is more, winners will be mentored by leading industry and investment experts. And shortlisted applicants will attend a virtual 2-day engaging Boot Camp led by experts. Participation in NBEC also brings excellent visibility at national level for the innovation and innovators.

In addition to above, WIN Foundation offers the opportunity to participate in WIN Innovative products market validation scheme to participants and winners.

NBEC is open to student teams, researcher, innovator, aspiring entrepreneur, start-up, a small or medium biotech company or someone with a bright idea in any discipline of the Life Sciences, here is your chance to win! A poster with detailed information is attached with this email.

For more details and to APPLY click here

Applications close on October 10th, 2022, 5.30 pm

About NBEC: Every year C-CAMP organizes National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition (NBEC), a nationwide competition to attract, identify, and nurture bio-entrepreneurs working on novel and scalable business ideas with significant societal impact. Applicants compete for attractive cash prizes and investment opportunities. First Launched in 2017, NBEC has truly set an example in its cross-country geographical reach with registrations across 33 states and union territories including metros, Tier II and Tier III cities and towns. NBEC since its inception has grown greatly in stature and size. Over the past six editions, NBEC Partners grew from 10 in 2017 to 34 in 2022, and prize money and investment opportunities grew from INR 83 Lakhs in 2017 to 8.6 Cr. NBEC has brought to the forefront 63 exceptionally promising young entrepreneurs as winners, who have grabbed the attention of investors, were featured in national and global media, and have gone on to win many other accolades.

If you have any queries, please write to brec_events@ccamp.res.in

C-CAMP conducted the fifth edition of the National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition, # NBEC 2021, on behalf of Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.

The National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition (NBEC), organised by BREC – a joint initiative of BIRAC and C-CAMP, with Department of Biotechnology as the main sponsor, is a national platform to attract, identify, and nurture bio-entrepreneurs with path breaking ideas for societal impact.
 
C-CAMP launched NBEC 2021 on 16th August’21. WIN Foundation was again a category partner for NBEC 2021 for the domains of (1) Water and Sanitation and (2) Maternal and child health

NBEC 2021 received overwhelming response with over 2500+ applications from 30 states and UTs of India. 300+ applications were shortlisted for regional qualifier pitching round (virtual) in November. The Jury members, from industry, academia, and investor community, shortlisted 72 business ideas for a virtual Boot Camp and Mentoring Program that was held between 1-3 December.

At the NBEC 2021 Grand Finale on 18th December, 2021, 17 Startups and 5 student innovators were given awards.

WIN SPONSORED CATEGORYWINNERS :

1. Vasanth Ramesh, Humus Biosystems – Decentralized wastewater treatment system for public toilet complexes – won the WIN Foundation cash prize of 3 lakhs INR and Sangam VC investment opportunity of 350,000 USD in Water & Sanitation category

2. Prasad Muddam & Akitha Kolloju, Heamac Healthcare – An intelligent phototherapy device that can treat severe jaundice in neonates – won the WIN Foundation cash prize of 3 lakhs INR in the Maternal & Child Health category.

Press links 

• https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/17-startups-5-students-win-entrepreneurship-contest/articleshow/88379967.cms [Times of India]
• https://www.biovoicenews.com/nbec-2021-declares-the-names-of-17-startups-5-students-as-winners/ [Biovoice]

For more details, please visit https://www.ccamp.res.in/node/2213

C-CAMP conducted the fourth edition of the National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition, # NBEC 2020, on behalf of Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.

WIN Foundation was again a category partner for NBEC 2020 for the domains of (1) Water and Sanitation and (2) Maternal and child health. WIN Foundation was the category partner for NBEC -2019 as well for these two domains.

The annual NBEC program has emerged as the flagship program to identify and reward some of the most promising deep tech ideas in all domains of the Life Sciences including agriculture, environment, personal care products, AMR, drugs & therapeutics and more. These ideas and innovations aim to solve country’s challenges through scalable and sustainable business approaches to achieve societal and economic impact.

NBEC 2020 this time adopted innovative online processes, allowing for participation by juries from across the country. It received 3100+ applications from Start-ups, individuals and students, from the 33 States and Union Territories of India.  Based on review by domain experts,  300+ applications were shortlisted for regional qualifier pitching round (virtual), which were held between November 17-24.  The jury members were  from diverse background- industry, academia, and investor community. Following the regional qualifiers, 54 business ideas have been shortlisted for a virtual Boot Camp and Mentoring Programs were held between 1-3 December. The Grand Finale and prize distribution ceremony was held on 19th December 2020, the following startups won the awards in the WIN sponsored categories:

1. NanoPearl – Deau Technologies Pvt.Ltd

NanoPearl is an indigenously developed multivalent two stage solution with following characteristics:

• it simultaneously tackles high TDS, heavy-metal and microbial-contamination in a single unit.
• It uses an adsorbent made up of conscious metallic nanoparticle embedded inside the nano-engineered crystal structure which ultimately results into a super purifier.
• This system provides accepted levels of BIS-10500-2012 for safe-drinkable-water.

2. CerviScan – Sascan Meditech Pvt Ltd.

CerviScan is an automated system for screening and detection of very early stage cervical cancers using a           disruptive multimodal imaging technology with the following characteristics:

• Imaging of tissue fluorescence, diffuse reflectance and absorption, using multispectral illumination·
• Non-invasive mapping of the loss in collagen fluorescence and oxyhaemoglobin absorption in cervical tissues·
• Application of cloud-based ML algorithm for detection of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN)·
• Biopsy guidance for improving diagnostic accuracy

Health Workers can be trained to operate the Cerviscan under field conditions.  Cerviscan is portable, easy to use. Thus it provides an ideal tool for mass screening in remote areas.

To know more please visit https://nationalbioentrepreneurship.in/

NATIONAL BIO ENTREPRENEURSHIP COMPETITION (NBEC) – 2019

• organized by C-CAMP ON BEHALF OF DBT, Government of India, with WIN FOUNDATION as CATEGORY PARTNER FOR THE DOMAINS OF (I) WATER AND SANITATION AND (II) MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH
• Period : 1^st August 2019 to 14^th December 2019

Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP), Bangalore, conducted the 3rd Edition of NBEC, from the 1st of August to 14^th December, 2019. The objective of the competition is to identify ideas that have business potential and societal impact. NBEC, thus, serves as a forum to amplify bio-entrepreneurship across the country.

The competition received nearly 3000 applications from across the. Following the regional qualifiers, 67 business ideas were shortlisted for the Boot Camp held between 11-13 December in Bengaluru. The rigorous jury evaluations on 13^th and 14^th saw tough competition among promising startups leading to selection of final winners.

As category partner for (i) Water and Sanitation and (ii) Maternal and Child Health, WIN Foundation participated in early evaluation and then jury rounds, and sponsored the category awards.

.

NEBC – 2019 – PRIZE WINNERS

1. Start-up name: Alcheme

Subdomain: Water & Sanitation

Founders :  Prof. Prabhu Rajagopal Professor, IIT Madras  and Mr. Divanshu Kumar

Robotic solution for homogenisation of contents, intervention, and cleaning in septic tanks. Alcheme is developing HomeSEP, a robotic solution for homogenizing and breaking the sludge in the restricted space of septic tank. The key features of HomeSEP include: intrinsic safety, minimalistic design with reduced number of moving parts, modularity to cater to variable sizes of septic tanks and an expandable compact architecture, with low carbon-footprint. The solution is also designed to be cost-effective and easy to operate. HomeSEP will help in overcoming the practice of manual scavenging, provide the sanitary workers with a dignified and healthy way to provide services, and thus create a large societal impact.

2. Start-up name: Blackfrog Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Date of incorporation: 04 November 2015

Biotech subdomain: Maternal & Child Health (MCH); Medical Devices

Founder: Mr. Mayur Shetty CEO, Blackfrog Technologies

Portable and battery powered medical grade refrigerator for vaccine transport: Blackfrog has developed Emvólio- a portable, battery-powered refrigeration device that will strictly maintain any pre-set temperature for up to 12 hours for last-mile transport of vaccines. Further device capabilities will include continuous temperature monitoring, location tracking, state of charge indication, and communication with headquarters via live tracking and vital statistics. The device is meant for use in typical day-long immunization campaigns, where the healthcare workers take vaccines to the field and bring back the left-overs at the end of the day for reuse/disposal. Through this device, Blackfrog seeks to (i) reduce risk of vaccine becoming ineffective or unsafe, (ii) reduce the economic burden of wasted vaccines and (iii) optimize human resources in vaccine delivery by nullifying the need for repeated immunization visits to account for the administering of ineffective vaccines.

Event Media coverage:

• https://indusdictum.com/2019/12/17/11-bio-entrepreneurs-win-awards-for-digital-health-medical-devices-agri-biotech-at-birac-nbec/
• https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/entrepreneurship-is-about-how-you-monetise-an-idea-kiran-mazumdar-shaw/article30317664.ece
• https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/twelve-entrepreneurs-emerge-winners-in-nbec-2019/articleshow/72664342.cms
• https://yourstory.com/2019/12/c-camp-national-bio-entrepreneurship-competition
• http://www.indiascienceandtechnology.gov.in/stihighlights/nbec-2019-evolution-maturing-ecosystem-unlocking-bio-entrepreneurship-talent-across-india
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc2BsI3F7-8
• https://vigyanprasar.gov.in/isw/Eleven-bio-entrepreneurs-win-in-the-National-Bio-Entrepreneurship-Competition.htm