Tamil Nadu Innovation Grand Challenge

I am happy to have been invited for being one of the juries for the “sprint” sessions of Tamil Nadu Innovation Grand Challenge (TNIGC), an initiative by Tamil Nadu Government’s Entrepreneurship Development and Innovation Institute (EDII) to support ideas of budding startups and to provide a seed money of Rs. 5 Lakhs for each of the winning team. It was a privilege to share the jury duty with leaders of the startup ecosystem in the city – Balram Nair of The Chennai Angels, Dorai Thodla of iMorph Innovation Centre and Ranjith Melarkode of SPI Cinemas.

Pitches being made by various teams during TNIGC 2019. Picture courtesy: Smiley Media.

The whole day of pitches by nearly 20 startups was exhilarating, the passion each of the founders exhibited was infectious and my best wishes to all of them who got shortlisted (video) to the next rounds and to win the finals.

WisOpt (Video)	Education	Disrupting the way organisation learn and hire powered by AI.
Estreetz	Manufacturing	Redefining connections (people, machines, internet).
GAEA (Video)	Agriculture	GAEA a Digital Agri-Ecosystem.
Carpro Technologies (Video)	Agriculture	Innovative dehydrator helps farmers for their drying needs
Modulus housing	Manufacturing	Modulus Housing works on new age mobile housing.
Cambrionics Life Science (Video)	Education	Making biology available for all.
LEPoCUBE AssisTech	Logistics	Affordable Assistive Technology Devices for People with Disabilities (PwD)
Thedush	Manufacturing	Autonomous cleaner robots
WeThe5Pilots Research Labs	Logistics	Aero-science based startup who are interested in Aerodynamics and Structural Dynamics.
Artro Energy	Smart Cities	Improving the performance of the solar plant with its data analytics software
Tan90	Agriculture	Democratizing cold storage logistics by making a modular cooling solution
Kodate	Education	Adaptive learning based assessment platform for school children
MADIEE (Video)	Education	Inspiring Learning, by shifting it from blackboard to gameboard

The event was very well organised by the team from EDII – The Director, Deputy Director (R Shiva Shankar, IES), Abinash M Mudaliyar & Dhanush Ram S. The facility at Cowrks, RMZ Millennia Business park, Perungudi was world-class.