Seven Ashirvad Water Competition finalists will create cutting-edge technologies to address the issue of water scarcity in various areas of India. The 25 water innovators who made the finalist list have been announced by The/Nudge Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) and Ashirvad Pipes.
The approach leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to create affordable and perhaps scalable technology that may be installed in homes across the nation that are experiencing water scarcity.
Five of the seven finalists will get milestone grants totaling Rs 75 lakhs as part of the competition. They will now contend for a prize pool of Rs 1.75 crores, which will be given to the winning and runner-up solutions.
i47 Innovation Labs, Ossus Biorenewables, Smartterra, Solinas Integrity, VAS Bros. Enterprises, and Urdhvam Environmental Solutions are among the seven finalists. A group of impartial judges from IIT Jodhpur led by Professor Pradip K Tewari, Professor Chair at the Jal Jeevan Mission, chose them from a group of 25 water entrepreneurs.
While Ossus Biorenewables works toward the manufacture of biohydrogen, Aumsat Technologies offers ready-to-use satellite data. The digital modeling of water networks is being done by Smartterra using their AI-powered analytics platform, and Solinas Integrity employed robotics to find leaks. Similar to how Urdhvam assists in making borewells highly sustainable, VAS Brothers Enterprises assists in the purification of water by removing heavy metals.
The/Nudge Prize Director Kanishka Chatterjee said in a statement that she was “inspired and awed by how the enormous ecosystem in water has rallied to embrace a daring initiative from The/Nudge Institute, that aspires to bring a spotlight and provide wings to India’s premier water-tech firms.”
The finalists will now have to demonstrate their improvement on factors related to water management and overall impact on the area, according to CSI. Via a strategic plan or action on the ground, they will address the major problems discovered throughout their journey to scale.
The 25 innovators piloted their initiatives for six months as part of the competition, started user testing, spread their solution presence to more regions, and realized the potential for scalability and impact of their inventions. Mentorship was also given to them.
