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Dear Friends,

At the outset, let us together welcome the new year 2021, with a resolve to continue to work to better the quality of life and livelihoods within our communities and empower them to own their own destinies.

It is our pleasure to bring out this 4th issue of the WIN newsletter.
 
Amidst continuing Covid19 related uncertainties, our partners continue to work around these challenges and focus on the pressing challenges in the twin focus domains of WIN Foundation. On economic front, the last four months have seen rebound of economic activity with positive indicators like rural FMCG sales, vehicle sales, GST collection, fuel consumption, among others, thus creating grounds for cautious optimism.
 
It is heartening to see even poor and middle class communities adopt progressive means to overcome hurdles posed by covid, eg. adopting online or blended mode of communication and learning. This has great potential benefits for their future.
 
WIN approach continues to evolve around following key drivers:

(i)    Multi-stakeholder approach, bringing  multiple complementary capabilities, to provide complete solution.
(ii)   Community  empowerment including building awareness, skilling and micro-entrepreneurship, to create grass roots driven sustainability.
(iii)  Technology and process innovation to bring science to society and society to science.
(iv)  Knowledge management with data, analysis and improvement in processes for moving to a more knowledge based society.

In this issue, we present an outline of the our above approach in Nutrition and our projects and partners under this approach. The recently released  National Family Health Survey (NHFS) 5 report clearly underlines the continued critical challenges in nutrition.  

Innovation also requires continuous search for talent and support for their growth. The annual National Bio-Entrepreneurship Competition(NBEC), organized by C-CAMP on behalf of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, has emerged as a flagship program for bio-entrepreneurship. Like last year, WIN Foundation is a category partner in (i) Water and Sanitation and (ii) Maternal and Child Health, in the NBEC 2020. We cover the winners in these categories.

We continue our support for the WIN Innovative Product Market Validation Program for startups. Last quarter saw installation of  automatic borewell water sensors in the PGWM project area under ACT in Kutch and toilet attachment for disabled from Oston in the project area of MHT in Rajasthan. We look forward to more applications from startups.(https://winfoundations.org/programs/)
 
Our WIN WATSAN Webinar Series 2020, organized jointly with leading institutions,  concluded on Oct 8th, with excellent response. This was followed with a Roundtable among organizing partners to discuss future directions including possible collaborative opportunities. This issue covers the last three sessions and the roundtable. 

WIN Foundation participated in the PAN IIT 2020 annual mega virtual event, organized by PAN IIT USA. WIN Directors also addressed several other conferences organized by other prominent organisations.
 
In the coming months, WIN Foundation will remain focused on helping our multiple partners to continue projects involving innovations and empowerment, while overcoming the hurdles posed by the pandemic. We firmly believe that grass root level advocacy generated by this will be valuable for scaling up interventions in a self-sustaining manner.
 
We hope you enjoy reading this newsletter, and look forward to your feedback (email to info@winfoundations.org). We also invite contributory articles, case studies etc. for future issues.                                                                          
  
With Warm Regards


Paresh Vora
Director India Operations                                                                                                                          
WIN Nutrition Support Projects: Multi-stakeholder Approach

WIN’s vision of introducing innovations for social impact in a sustainable manner, requires multiple partners in the ecosystem to collaborate. These include:        

  • Institutions - for research, technology, product, process development     
  • Startups for innovation in product or service and business models.  
  • Innovation in business and delivery model by startups and by some dynamic NGOs           
  • NGO’s to take innovations to communities, including using new delivery models, empowering communities, arranging financing and finance models to meet community needs      
  • Government for providing policy, regulations and local support

WIN Foundation brings collaborations among its diverse partners for above. This includes collaborations within projects, across projects and also enabling collaborations between our partners for their non-WIN-supported projects. This is particularly important in social impact space as the economic drivers are not often strong enough, at least to start with.

We present our multi-stakeholder approach for the critical challenges in Mother and Child Nutrition, through multiple projects.                         

For long term adoption of innovative nutrition practices, WIN Foundation, has brought together diverse partners, each of whom bring unique and strong competencies. By bringing them together to collaborate, WIN enables a stronger and more sustainable solution for problems, as compared to individual attempts. WIN nutrition projects are briefly described below:

1. Women and Adolescent Girls led Approach for Food and Nutrition Security in Urban Slums                   

WIN Foundation, through partnership with Mahila Housing Sewa Trust(MHT), Rural ntrepreneurship and Livelihood Foundation (REAL), Shrimati Malati Dahanukar Trust (SMDT) and Lok Swasthya Sewa Trust (LSST), launched this project to improve health & well-being of slum dwellers through integrated nutrition & WASH intervention coupled with micro-entrepreneurship for nutrition – addressing Demand and Supply factors as follows:

Create Pull or Demand for nutrition and hygiene: Generate awareness and knowledge among communities for nutrition & hygiene. Train Health Champions / Leaders from within community to regularly train and counsel mothers and other stakeholders.

Create Push or Supply of nutritious food: Create and nurture women microentrepreneurs from within the community, to make and supply nutritious food items to community and outside. This creates the Push or supply of nutritious food items to fulfil the demand and also creates livelihoods and economic value-addition within the community.

This dual Push – Pull strategy is aimed to create sustainable transformation with following outcomes:    

  • High awareness and positive attitude towards health and hygiene among the community    
  • Pool of Master Health trainers and counsellors from among the community to work within the community for better health and nutrition in long term.    
  • Increase in percentage of slum population using safely managed drinking water and sanitation facilities    
  • Decrease cases of undernutrition among vulnerable groups of targeted communities.  
  • At least a few successful microentrepreneurs to provide livelihood and improve quality of life within the community and build role models within the community.

2. Child Nutrition Lab (ChiNu) at Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA), IIT Bombay
  

ChiNu is working towards the goal of malnutrition free India, as a knowledge partner, with focus on Nutrient delivery through food route, which include: (i) develop innovative nutritious food products, with measured nutrition content, (ii) test them with communities to verify outcome, refine the products and then (iii) drive nutrition improvements through suitable strategy, business /delivery models with products to target segments and communities. This also includes supporting local micro-entrepreneurship through Women Self Help Groups and other micro-enterprises, guiding them on recipes and production methods, nutrition content analysis, quality control, marketing, etc.

3. Training of Trainers  - by Dr. Rupal Dalal, Shrimati Malati Dahanukar Trust (SMDT), Mumbai
 

Dr. Rupal Dalal has developed an extensive training program to train Field Health Workers, as master trainers, in mother and child nutrition, covering the first 1000 days nutrition, from conception of baby to about 2.5 years of age, covering both mother and child nutrition needs. The training covers breastfeeding, recipes for complementary feeding, pre-pregnancy, adolescence, nutrition during pregnancy, nutrition during lactation, junk foods & health, science of nutrition and safety & food hygiene. The Field Health workers,in turn, counsel and train mothers and other community members.


4. Spoken Tutorials for Health - by Spoken Tutorial Project, IIT, Bombay   

Health Spoken Tutorials have been developed based on the intensive training program described above, by Dr. Rupal Dalal, Trustee, SMDT, and also Adjunct faculty at IIT Bombay. These tutorials have progressively covered topics listed above.

Spoken tutorials use audio-visual screen-casts, are usually 10-12 minutes and are available in major Indian languages. They are easy to use - for (i) training master trainers, (ii) use by  master trainers while training mothers and other community members, and (iii) for self learning by mothers or other family community members.

Spoken Tutorials for Health allows  the originally face to face training to be adapted to  blended face to face and online mode. This allows scaling of the training, and has also allowed continuity during the  Covid pandemic.

5. Nutritious breakfast packets for Anganwadis - The Breakfast Revolution (TBR)
 

The Breakfast Revolution, (TBR Inc., USA), provides nutritious breakfast in ready to eat packs to anganwadi and primary school children primarily  in Maharashtra, and also measure health parameters to study impact of this.

WIN Foundation, with help of local implementation partner, Niswarth Children Foundation,  has introduced these nutritious breakfast packs, from TBR,  for anganwadi children, in selected villages in Bavla area in Ahmedabad district, along with health counselling to anganwadi workers, parents and children . The project covers 300 children over 1 year (approx. 250 days per year). Pre and post health measurements are being done to study the impact.

Thus the multiple projects above  involve partners who address both Demand and Supply factors, in the following manner

Demand or Pull:

  • SMDT - LSST - MHT: (i) Training of Field health workers as master trainers and counselors and (ii) Awareness activities through mass contact and regular follow up by the trained Field Health Workers.     
  • Spoken Tutorial , IITB - easy to use Spoken Tutorial videos for health- for training master trainers, use by master trainers while training mothers and other family seniors, and for self learning by mothers.

Thus the above activities are aimed at creating awareness and strong demand or pull for nutritious food within the communities.

Supply or Push:

  • REAL - MHT: Micro-entrepreneurship among women groups to supply nutritious food items to community, maintaining quality, safety and nutrition standards.        
  • CHiNU (IIT Bombay) support to micro-entrepreneurs and self help groups, for development of nutritious recipes, localise to local tastes and preferences, nutrition content analysis of products and suggestions for enhancement.        
  • TBR: Nutritious breakfast packets to anganwadis.Each stakeholder above has strong competencies and together bring a stronger solution for the community.

Combined effort for both Demand and Supply, is aimed at a solution ultimately owned by community itself, and hence becomes more sustainable and replicable across other locations.

Each stakeholder above has strong competencies and together bring a stronger solution to the community.

Micro-entrepreneurship also brings greater empowerment among the community for better quality of life and livelihoods.

Our multi-stakeholder approach has also generated further collaboration among WIN partners, helping them in their activities in their other projects as well.

E.g. 1. During early days of pandemic, our partner MHT, consulted through  Dr. Rupal Dalal, nutrition experts at Nirmala Niketan, Mumbai, to enhance the ration kit with greater nutritional balance, with very little additional cost. This was then adopted by a few of our other partners too.

E.g. 2. ChiNu labs at IIT Bombay, analysed the nutrition content of the breakfast packs provided by the TBR. They confirmed the protein and energy content, and made suggestions for further enhancement to improve micronutrients.

E.g. 3. MHT introduced Training of Master Trainers by Dr. Rupal Dalal through a blended online-offline mode for another Covid response health project. In the same project, they are packaging Spoken Tutorials for health in a health app, so that users can view the tutorials and this usage data can be analysed.                                                                     

Interview with Dr. Satish Agnihotri, Professor and Emeritus Fellow, CTARA at IIT Bombay
 
What are critical challenges in sustainable nutrition solutions in country? 

Three most critical challenges in sustainable solutions for reduction in malnutrition are i) mother’s agency for correct MIYCF (Maternal, infant and young child feeding) practices, ii) care during pregnancy and ii) an infection free environment. The need to sustain these gains have been highlighted by the latest NFHS survey results where even the better off states have slipped back in terms of nutritional levels among its young children and, equally worryingly, in terms of childhood anemia. This clearly brings out the need to rethink the way we have implemented the interventions. 
 
What was the inspiration behind the establishment of ChiNu? What is ChiNu’s vision and challenges? 

The main motivation for setting up ChiNu was to encourage out of box thinking by engineering students looking to engage with issues of rural development, to look at the solutions for eliminating child malnutrition. Our students bring a fresh perspective to the issue with the help of the data analytics and infographics, innovative training pedagogy and new ways at looking at food products to make these nutritious, convenient and affordable. The second idea was to create a trained manpower that can take an interdisciplinary view of the issue and is able to cope with the rapid ingress of information, big data and new technologies in this field. I am happy that both these aspects have worked out fine so far.  

Our vision is to demystify the whole challenge of tackling child malnutrition and contribute to malnutrition free India. The challenges are quite a few. First is to gain acceptance among the community of practitioners – IIT students working on child malnutrition is rather unusual. But this barrier has been overcome due to the work of the students with organisations like UNICEF and with Civil Society groups. Then their academic publications have been of high quality and participation in national and international conferences have given them visibility and confidence. They are accepted in the sector and we have managed to retain most of them in the sector. 

The second challenge was to have access to policy makers and district administration. The data analytical abilities developed in ChiNu have helped in this regard. We have shared our analyses with state governments and advocacy groups. But we have a long way to go. Our advocacy tools on breastfeeding in various regional languages and efforts for promotion of nutri-gardens have been well appreciated.

In the food products side, we are addressing the issue of the ‘hidden hunger’ or the micro-nutrient deficiencies. Usually the fortification efforts are centered around a specific micro-nutrient or two. We are looking at products that are cater to the full spectrum of micro-nutrients, and are convenient to process and affordable at the same time. WIN is supporting this activity whole heartedly. 

What is your view on the WIN support for ChiNu?
 
WIN and ChiNu have similar thinking on the issue of the food products. Both are looking at affordable, nutritious and convenient products. Today what is convenient food is not nutritious and what is nutritious is not convenient. In addition we want this to be affordable. But this can be tackled. WIN is also supportive of the decentralized production through SHGs and micro-entrepreneurs and to promote locally compatible foods. Of course many local foods e.g. Idli or Dhokla have now become national foods! We of course need to be careful about the quality control aspects and do local capacity building for this. I am sure the ChiNu – WIN partnership will be able to contribute to the important goal of tackling child malnutrition in the difficult times ahead in the post pandemic era. 
 Mr. Siraz Hirani, Senior Program Management Specialist, Mahila Housing SEWA Trust 
 
“Social issues are generally complex and require multi-sectoral interventions for a comprehensive solution that is sustainable. However, in the existing eco-system it is very challenging to plan such intervention due to distinct mandates and funding sources of different stakeholders. WIN Foundation is very forthcoming in trying out new ideas that might seem challenging but promises lasting impact. Project titled “Women & Adolescent Girls Led Approach for Food & Nutrition Security in Urban Slums” is one such example wherein WIN Foundation facilitated multi-stakeholder consultation and designed a project involving 3 NGOs and 1 Social Enterprise bringing in distinct expertise of creating social capital, health, nutrition, WASH and entrepreneurship. This project addresses different interlinked issues of the poor urban community like malnutrition, health, livelihood, water & sanitation with a community led approach. Such projects not only help to address complex social issues but also facilitate cross learning between different partners.”
INNOVATION  SUPPORT PROGRAMS
WIN Foundation Innovation Support programs aim to
  • 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 livelihood, and help create sustainable and scalable social impact. 
  • 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
National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition (NBEC) – 2020 - organized by Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP), on behalf of Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. 

C-CAMP conducted the fourth edition of the NBEC 2020. NBEC identifies and rewards some of the most promising deep tech ideas in all domains of the Life Sciences including agri, environment, personal care products, AMR, drugs & therapeutics and more.

As in NBEC 2019, WIN Foundation was again a category partner for NBEC 2020 for (1) Water and Sanitation and (2) Maternal and child health. 

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:  
Interview with Dr. Taslimarif, Saiyed, CEO and Director, C-CAMP

1. What is vision of NBEC and how has it emerged as the leading talent unearthing competition in bio-tech space in India? How do you see it emerging further over next few years?
 
Within three years, NBEC has emerged India’s biggest bio-entrepreneurship competition, attracting innovative ideas from almost each and every state as well as union territory in India, as well ideas from across spectrum of socio-economic strata. In this way, NBEC, an open national platform, essentially democratised the process for talents across India, and more importantly supports them in their onward innovation journey. This year, we had opportunity to build a dedicated prize for students, another attempt to attract students to share their innovative ideas, provide them level-playing field and we had overwhelming response, indicating excitement in youth to build innovative ideas and build them further.

 
2. How do you view the role of a partner like WIN Foundation, a non-profit, specifically for NBEC, and also in innovation movement in general in India?

 An aspect of NBEC is to go beyond the competition and build partnerships to support these innovators in different areas. This is exactly where partnership with organisations like WIN Foundation, a dedicated non-profit for (i) Water and Sanitation and (ii) Maternal and Child Health sectors, is crucial to identify and support innovations impacting society. This alignment of innovation with understanding of the need from the ground, built with our partnership with WIN and other organisations, is a key towards innovation’s impact and a must exercise right in the beginning in innovations journey. We look forward to further strengthening our partnership with WIN, bringing more innovative solutions for these sectors, in India and beyond.
LOOK BACK AT NBEC - 2019 - WIN sponsored award winning start-ups:

We are happy to report that the winners of the NEBC 2019 in the two WIN categories continue to make progress towards their vision of making substantial impact. We present a glimpse in the founders' own words below.

Alcheme Robotics: (Robotic solution for cleaning in septic tanks and sewerage lines in a hygienic safe and dignified manner) - winner for WIN award - WATSAN Category


Interview with Prof. Prabhu Rajagopal Professor, IIT Madras, Founder. 
 
1. What is current status of Alcheme - challenges and opportunities? 

The key product being developed under the banner of Alcheme is the HomoSEP robot for automatic homogenization of septic tank contents. This year, our team has worked very hard at product development despite the severe restrictions imposed by lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with innovative approaches including distributed design and miniaturization for rapid testing. We now a working Laboratory prototype and preliminary trials are to commence shortly. We foresee being able to complete field trials in early next year, beyond which the product will be further modified based on practical experiences, and readied for market launch. We are also exploring connecting our effort to Startups from our group at IITM, to accelerate the process of product development and field deployment. 

2. How do you view support by a non-profit foundation like WIN Foundation for Alcheme?

The process of developing a new product based on practical requirements and taking it to the field through the vital stages of design, mock-up and field trials and iteration is a daunting task even for large organisations, and a period that is not often friendly to results and productivity oriented business cycles. It is here that the role of Startups and proto-Startups such as Alcheme who particularly work with an academic Laboratory such as ours, comes into picture, as they act as pathfinders in the process of 'market discovery'. Finding a sustainable product-business fit is also a challenge and a long cycle in itself. In this process, we are fortunate to have the support of technology-focused group such WIN Foundation that has societal good as the basis of its positive approach to Startup teams. We value and cherish the kind guidance and cheer received from the Chairman Mr. Paresh Vora, and strongly believe that this ecosystem will be backbone as we go forward in our efforts to get past the 'technology valley of death' that chokes most efforts at successful product development. Of course the support from the R&D and startup ecosystem at IITM underlines our efforts.


Blackfrog Technologies (Portable and battery powered medical grade refrigerator for vaccine transport) winner under Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Category. 

 Interview with Mr. Mayur Shetty, C.E.O & Product Architect    
  

1. What is current status of Blackfrog - challenges and opportunities?

We have completed the R&D and field-validation of Emvolio- our portable vaccine carrier technology and are presently scaling up our manufacturing capabilities. We celebrated our fifth year anniversary as of 4th November, 2020 and we released our next-generation Vaccine carriers specifically designed to transport COVID-19 vaccines when they are approved and deployed at scale. We are now conversing with the MoHFW and trying to understand how we may fit into the COVID-19 vaccine delivery campaign.

2. What was the importance of winning the WIN Foundation award in NBEC 2019 for Blackfrog and personally for you?

It certainly gave us the right visibility to go ahead and raise further funds. The award in itself was quite prestigious and gave us a lot of credibility among our partners to implement our system in new setups. The cash-prize was a huge boost for to deploy further units immediately. We're very grateful to your support.
OUTREACH ACTIVITIES

      

WIN WATSAN Webinar Series 2020 concluded on Oct 8th, followed by a Roundtable discussion on Oct 15th  among  organizing partners for future directions. WIN Foundation coordinated and organized this six part series on behalf of all partners, including outreach, seminar organization, post-seminar archiving etc.

In the previous newsletter issue (Vol.3), we have covered the highlights  of the first three sessions.  In this issue, we cover highlights of the last three sessions and key points of the roundtable. 


Highlights of last 3 sessions:

24th Sep’20 (Session-4):
Integrating the designs of water, wastewater, storm water and solid waste for small towns and large villages, Speaker: Dr. Bakul Rao, Professor Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA), IIT Bombay


Prof. Bakul Rao presented on Designing a model WATSAN system for two small towns in Maharashtra, including systems for water storage and distribution, sanitation, sewage and storm water management and solid-waste management. Innovative design technology and solutions, including use of several open source tools, were used, to address the challenges in development of integrated solutions. This also resulted in a design tool with wider application for small towns / large villages in India, who do not have large budgets for designing such systems.

1st Oct’20 (Session-5):
Water treatment and desalination: Addressing bottlenecks in energy and materials, Speaker: Dr.Jaichander Swaminathan, Kanchan and Harilal Doshi Chair,Assistant Professor for Water, Centre for Sustainable Development, IIT Gandhinagar


Dr. Jaichander presented an overview on Desalination technologies based on type of energy and limits of energy consumption, including RO specific energy consumption. He covered the general principles used to improve the energy efficiency. Dr. Chinmay Ghoroi, B. S. Gelot Chair Professor of Chemical Engineering, IIT Gandhinagar, presented about the innovative surface engineered particle technology for a low-cost and Non-electric Water Disinfection Filter for Point-of-Use or household level use. Dr. Manish Kumar, Assistant Professor, Earth Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar talked about his two projects supported by WIN Foundation (1) Micro-components quantification of end uses of water consumption at household level and (2) Ins-situ Arsenic and fluoride removal from the groundwater.

8th Oct’20 (Session 6):
Empowering Communities through Innovations for sustainable Social Impact – a dialog with Startups and Innovators, Speakers: Mr.Paresh Vora, Director – India Operations, WIN Foundation and Dr.Subramaniam C Associate Professor – Chemistry Dept., IIT Bombay. Startups which presented: 


Mr. Paresh Vora explained regarding the vision of WIN Foundation and its initiatives to support the innovations, to bring sustainable social impact in the domain of Water and Sanitation, as part of the multi-stakeholder approach used by WIN. 

Dr. C. Subramanium, IIT Bombay, described his innovative Chakra product to reduce TDS, supported by WIN Foundation, based on the capacitive deionization,  using carbon nanotubes coated cellulose threads. This can provide a cost effective alternative to RO systems for low income household and communities, with only 5% water wastage. 
Three innovative start-ups with very unique socially relevant products in the water and sanitation domain, talked about their products, target markets, strategies, challenges and differences they aim to make. 
1.Alcheme Robotics,(by Prof. Prabhu Rajagopal Professor, IIT Madras and Divanshu Kumar) (Winner of WIN WATSAN Award at NEBC 2019):  Robotic solution cleaning in septic tanks and sewerage lines, to offer a safe, healthy and dignified work to sanitation workers. 

2. Oston Technology, Jaipur. (by Mr. Kumar Kalika and Mr. Sayar Singh, Product : Smart retrofit toilet kit to transform existing toilets into disabled friendly toilets, and thus ensure greater ODF coverage. Oston has been supported under the WIN Innovative Product Market Validation Program.

3. Proximal Soilsens Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Pune. (by Dr. Rajul Patkar) : Low cost Soil moisture and Weather Monitoring Stations at, to allow farmers and village level workers to use them for smart agriculture practices, with optimized use of water and other inputs. Soilsens has been supported under the WIN Innovative Product Market Validation Program.

All three innovations are supported by WIN Foundation.

The videos of the complete series are available at WIN Webinar Series – Session Videos (click here)

Highlights-document of the complete series is available at  WIN Webinar Series – Session Highlights  (click here)

WIN WATSAN ROUNDTABLE SESSION, Scheduled on 15th October 20

The objectives of this roundtable session was to discuss on the topics presented at the previously held WIN WATSAN Webinar Series 2020 and possible future collaboration opportunities for projects or any other activities. This session was a closed group discussion with 25+ participants from nationally renowned institutions in the domain of Water and Sanitation viz. CEPT University – Centre for Water and Sanitation (CWAS), IIT Bombay – Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA), IIT Kharagpur – School of Environmental Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar – Centre for Sustainable Development, Arid Communities and Technologies, IIT Delhi - Centre for Rural Development and Technologies, Mahila Housing Sewa Trust, WIN Foundation and start-ups like Proximal Soilsens, Oston Technology. Summary of discussions and way forward:

  • High potential for collaborative inter-disciplinary action research projects for integrated solutions.     
  • Research coupled with pilots which include developing implementation processes, community involvement and ownership of solutions, skilling at grass roots, and demonstrated outcomes for society, will generate best advocacy at grass root levels among communities, as well as with government.       
  • Opportunity for startups to collaborate and work together with research institutions and field organisations can bring innovations to the field.
  • WIN Foundation will continue its initiative to bring diverse stakeholders together; for the common goal of social impact in sustainable manner.


DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP THROUGH A CHANGE OF MINDSET: TALK BY DR. MARSHALL GOLDSMITH, WORLD RENOWNED EXECUTIVE COACH

WIN Foundation partnered with Competitiveness Mindset Institute, (CMI) USA, to organize the above online talk on 29th October 2020 by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, ranked World’s #1 Executive Coach for two consecutive years, and winner of the Lifetime Award for Leadership by the Harvard Institute of Coaching.

Dr. Goldsmith lucidly presented to the 475+ attendees, on how leadership abilities in the youngest to the most accomplished professionals at the top of their organizations spring from a change of mindset leading to modifying one’s behavior in simple but fundamental ways.  (https://www.marshallgoldsmith.com/), followed by a lively Q&A session.

Leadership development through change in mindset is one of the important requirements for WIN Foundation’s vision of supporting innovations for sustainable social impact.


To know more CLICK HERE


IIT 2020 - PanIIT Alumni Global Summit

PanIIT USA organised one of the world’s largest two days virtual summit, with theme `IIT2020: The Future is Now’ This conference brought together change makers, innovators and thinkers, to innovate and inspire us all to rethink the future of humanity.WIN Foundation put up a virtual booth under the umbrella of its sister foundation, WHEELS Global Foundation. (link: https://sites.google.com/winfoundations.org/paniit2020/)

Mr. Paresh Vora  participated in the panel discussion organized by WHEELS Global Foundation during the PAN IIT 2020, organized by     PAN IIT USA,  on Dec 4, 2020 and talked about the R&D Innovation projects at IITs (IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Madras) sponsored by WIN Foundation.
(link: https://www.facebook.com/WheelsGlobalFoundation/videos/203300777942945)  

Participation in other events.

  • Mr. Ron Mehta, Executive Director, WIN Foundation was one of the key speakers at the India Water Forum 2020, organised by India Development Coalition, USA. on Nov 22, 2020, and presented on WIN initiatives in Water and Sanitation.     
  • Mr. Ron Mehta addressed the WHEELS webinar on  Scaling Philanthropy for India's Social Transformation on 9th Oct, 2020. He presented on innovation initiatives in Water and Sanitation and Maternal and Child Health with multiple partners. The recording of this is available at: http://www.wheelsglobal.org/scaling-philanthropy.      
  • Mr. Ron Mehta presented at the Ideal Village Conference: Sustainability and the Pandemic: Ensuring Human & Environmental Wellbeing, organized by the Science for Society forum and sponsored by the Stanford University School of Medicine & Science for Society, Stanford University, on Oct 14, 2020. He presented on: Clean Water Innovations at Grass Roots: Experiences at WIN Foundation.(https://www.scienceforsociety.com/s4s-october-14)       
  • Ms. Aishani Goswami, Project Associate - ACT, WIN Foundation, presented at the Youth Perspectives on Gender in Water Policies hosted by Centre for social research and TERI School of Advanced Studies on Oct 21, 2020 She presented on her work which involved assessing the water and sanitation needs of the urban poor in Gandhidham, Gujarat           

 Edited by: Shanti Menon, Paresh Vora
- For feedback and suggestions write to: impact@winfoundations.org

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