Social Entrepreneurship showcase at Umagine Chennai
The/Nudge Centre for Social Innovation hosted a segment showing how social entrepreneurship and tech-first thinking is evolving and changing the impact space. Some of our highly talented social entrepreneurs took the stage and electrified it with their social change stories across impact sectors. In “Living Books”, - Nidhi Anarkat and Megha from Navgurkul, Khushboo Awasthi from Shikshalokam, Manu Chopra from Karya, Simeen Kaleem from Gramhal and Krutika Ravishankar from Farmers for Forests talked about what inspired them to start on their journey to make impact, tackling challenges along the way and building a strong vision for the future.
In another panel discussion Subhashree Dutta interviewed T. Koshy, CEO of ONDC about large-scale transformations through the creation of digital public goods. They talked about opportunities created by the ONDC platform for building disruptive businesses, and how young companies can leverage it to access new markets, make their supply chain more efficient and ultimately drive transformative growth.
We also had another segment where Bharat Kumar (Deputy editor, Business, The Hindu) moderated a deep dive with sector stalwarts about the need for an ecosystem that nurtures early-stage innovation in diverse areas of development and the role of government in fostering socially motivated startups. The audience were inspired by the personal journey anecdotes and nuggets of successful entrepreneurship shared by our panelists - Anil Kumar (Founder and CEO of Samunnati, P R Ganapathy (Regional Director, Stanford Seed - South Asia )and Nidhi Bhasin (CEO, Nasscom Foundation).
We also facilitated the presentation of the Umagine Social Technopreneur Award 2023, jointly awarded by the Government of Tamil Nadu and Mphasis F1 Foundation. We received over 130 applications and the jury to determine the 3 finalists comprised Gopichand Katragadda, Smita Aggarwal, Arshad Sayyad and Jagdeesh Puppala. The award was won by Deepak Rajmohan of GreenPod Labs.
Greenpod Labs is a startup that produces active packaging technology to help reduce the spoilage of fresh produce. Founded by Deepak Rajmohan, Greenpod Labs is focused on reducing food waste in India, where 40% of fresh produce is lost before it reaches the consumer. The company's products are sachets that are placed inside food and vegetable crates to retain the quality and freshness of the produce during transport and storage. The sachets contain plant-based volatiles and polymers that counteract the biochemical changes responsible for spoilage.
Greenpod Labs primarily serves traders and exporters but also works with farmer cooperatives, e-commerce players, and retailers. The company has raised a pre-seed investment of INR 4 crores and several grants. Its scale ambitions involve expanding horizontally into other commodities such as grains, seeds, milk, and meat, and vertically into other developing countries in Asia and Africa.The company produces packing material to preserve 500 tons of fruits a day and intends to scale it up to 2,000 tons per day in a few months.
