A National Innovation Exhibition of grassroots innovators from across the country which formed the part of third week-long Festival of Innovation (FOIN), was organised in collaboration with the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), at Rashtrapati Bhavan from 4 -10 March, 2017.
The President of India Pranab Mukherjee presented the Ninth National Biennial Awards for Grassroots Innovations and Outstanding Traditional Knowledge. As many as 62 awards were given to 77 awardees.
The awardees include Kulsoom Rizavi of Lucknow who invented posture correcting chair, Deepankar Jena a class IX student from Odisha who left the viewers amazed by displaying his project industrial sewage and its purification and recycling, Md Usman Hanif Patel, a class VI student from Jalgaon, Maharashtra who made Modified hand cart with steering mechanism and brakes making life easier for street vendors who use handcarts, Prachi Mahadik, a class VII student from Satara, Maharshtra who developed Self operating Plastic Bottle recycle Machine that cuts the plastic bottles and converts them in plastic threads, which can be further reused for making brooms duster and Mansukhbhai Prajapati, a potter from Gujarat displayed Mitticool refrigerator, non-stick clay tawa and clay cooker which is 100 per cent organic and good for health.
Besides, The Living Root Bridges built by the indigenous people of Meghalaya, North East India exhibited incredible feats of engineering. Another interesting display was by C Sreenysh who made GSM based voting machine capable of saving considerable printing stationery and transport of large volumes of electoral material. Creations by young talents certainly demonstrated their ability to design experiments, carry them out, and analyse the results, drive to solve everyday problems for the common good.