NAGPUR, Januar 16, 2021 – Fifteen startups from India were honoured for their contributions to make the lives of people easier during the Covid -19 pandemic by incubator Lemon Ideas. This was a part of the firm’s Entrepreneurs’ Day celebrations.
Though India doesn’t have an official day to recognise the importance of entrepreneurship, it was on January 16 in 2016 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Start-up India Action Plan. Since 2017, Lemon Ideas and the cluster of local industrialists Vidarbha Industries Association started observing Entrepreneurs’ Day on the occasion, with this year’s celebration being the fifth edition. Former chief minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis was the chief guest during the virtual felicitation ceremony held on Saturday.
The winners were selected from among 150 business ideas collated throughout 2020, informed Lemon Ideas founder Deepak Menaria. “Five days into the lockdown, we started looking for disruptors who would turn the adversity into an opportunity,” he said. VIA vice President Suhas Buddhe said all the nominees had displayed great bravery, risk-taking ability and persistence to ensure their ideas reached out to the people in need during the pandemic.
Applauding the hosts for not only holding the event but for playing an active role in mentoring ideas and turning them into commercially viable businesses, Fadnavis stressed the importance of innovations, especially in the technological ones, to bring about equity in the society.
“India really needs to convert ideas into capital to leapfrog towards realising our aim of becoming a $ 5 trillion economy. I would urge the young entrepreneurs to work towards generating a new ecosystem that connects agriculture to marketing and helps farmers in making better decisions in a sustainable way with the help of technology,” said the former chief minister. He added that they must recognise the technological gaps, education gaps, equity gaps and help the government to bridge them.
The startup founders awarded during the ceremony include:
| S no | Startup Name | Entreprenuer’s name | work |
| 1 | Invenzee Technologies Pvt. Ltd. | Ajinkya Shinde | Sanezze is a patented small sanitizer dispenser device that can be attached on your wrist to make sanitization easy. |
| 2 | 3not robotics pvt ltd | Kuldeep Wadaskar | UV CAGE is a oven type world’s first contactless virus disinfectant case which Sanitize vegetables, belongings, electronics gadget & other highly touched items just in few minutes. |
| 3 | Technoventor Innovations Pvt Ltd | Pratik Gadkar | FABlab designed over 15 covid related products/innovatinons like Worlds First IOT Based Sanitisation Tunnel, Positive Pressure Mobile Swap Testing Facility, Covid Stretcher, Face shields, Masks and sanitizer dispencer |
| 4 | Global Shapers Community Nagpur (NGO) | Prerna Chandak (President) | They organized multiple editions of a 21-day journey during the lockdown aimed at creating a safe space for people to maintain their mental health. |
| 5 | IWill Therapy and ePsyclinic (company ePsyclinic healthcare private limited) | Shipra Dawar | More than. 5,00,000 people took therapy and counseling free of cost from ePsyclinicwhich worked 24*7 during pandemic and numerous Asha workers, Covid 19 patients, Doctors, frontline workers, cleaning teams and migrant and general public were beneficiaries. |
| 6 | Medicfibers Pvt Ltd | Harsh Lal | Viroside’ Anti Viral solution keeps cloth safe for up to 125 washes. 99.9% effective, non toxic (working on extending use to other surfaces ).having 3 provisional patents. |
| 7 | Aparoks Tech Private Limited | Sriveera M | Non-invasive Far Infrared wearable bands (FIR) like Neck, Chest, Knee and Hip bands that use our body’s Infrared (IR) rays and supplement it to increase immunity, improve healing, and reduce blood pressure for COVID Patients. |
| 8 | CURO Biosciences Private Limited | Dr Deovrat Begde | ERLYSIGN focuses on easy, non invasive , painless and affordable early detection of oral cancer using proprietary kit . In the absence of doctors/hospitals during Covid they helped many cancer patients. |
| 9 | Econiture | Madhur Rathi | Econiture is furniture & home decor products made from plastic waste and have used the covid times to push sustainability thought very aggressively using online channels. |
| 10 | Carbon Hubs Private Limited | Mr.Shalom Kingston | They have patented no-touch devices with an innovative air filtration technology which captures microbial matter (bacteria & virus), reduces particulate matter within 10 minutes, and removes harmful gases from the surroundings. |
| 11 | Studio Uniforms.com | Shikha Verma Thutheja | A specialized reputed tailoring company making anti-Microbial Medical Clothing like scrubs, masks, PPE Kits, face shields, oxi meters and gloves during COVID . |
| 12 | Sanishooter | Aditya Asabe | SaniShooter is a sleek, trendy wrist band sanitizer shooter available on many online shopping portals. |
| 13 | ekatra | Abheejit Khandagale | Vrikush Ecosyastem has built Ekatra, a Unified Learning Platform to help instructors to teach underpriviledged students in a low data or no data environment, combining the power of Text (SMS & Whatsapp), etc |
| 14 | Special recognition | Dr. Chandrashekhar Gillurkar | |
| 15 | PSI Healthcare | Keshav Daga | Leading manufacturer of Surgical Face Masks, N95 Masks, PPE kits, Protective Apparel, Drapes and Packs and expanded for numerous covid products to server numerous beneficiaries. |