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India's Most Innovative Companies

Bangalore: "An innovation is one of those things that society looks at and says, if we make this part of
the way we live and work, it will change the way we live and work", said Dean Kamen. There are few
Indian companies that are trying to bring in change in the lives of the people through their innovation.
Let's take a look on ten such innovative companies.
Shaadi.com

One of the most trusted matrimonial services of the world, Shaadi.com helps the people to find their
soulmates. Shaadi.com was founded in 1996 by Anupam Mittal with the simple objective to provide a
superior matchmaking experience by expanding the opportunities available to meet potential life
partners. The company has introduced more than 1.4 million couples.

HarVa

For expanding India's outsourcing industry to rural areas, Ajay Chaturvedi founded HarVa. HarVa
means Green for the villages and stands for "Harn
essing Value" of rural India. The company is a rural startup that primarily focuses on Skill
Development, BPO, Community based farming and Microfinance. HarVa is one of India's first rural BPO
operations. It trains young rural people, especially women, to develop technical skills from data entry
to software testing. It also offers a Rural XPOs, Rural LPO, Rural MPO, Rural KPO, Rural IT Outsourcing
and Consultancy.

VNL

VNL makes a solar powered global satellite mobile (GSM) and broadband system that helps operators
reach them profitably. The GSM is cheap, green and efficient. In six hours, the equipment can be
assembled onto a home rooftop with no tech expertise required and provide service to 2,000 users
within a two-mile radius.
The WorldGSM is the first commercially viable GSM system that is independent of the power grid. It
runs exclusively on solar power and requires no diesel generator backup. VNL was founded by Rajiv
Mehrotra, a veteran of the telecom industry, in 2004.
A Little World

ALW (A Little World) is the developer of ZERO, India's first domestic payment system with specific
focus on reaching out to masses with lowest available communication infrastructure. ALW was founded
by Anurag Gupta for conceptualization of ZERO for branchless banking, and in bringing key banks and
industry majors to support the implementation Financial Inclusion in villages. The Mumbai-based tech
shop's 2003 incubation of Mchek, a mobile-to-mobile payment platform, was later adopted by the
state of India and Airtel before it was spun off into a stand-alone business three years later.

Its ZERO is bringing about real difference in the lives of the underserved population in India by
providing access to banking and financial services at their doorstep.

Gram Vani

Gram Vani Community Media is a social development organization based in India, building opensource technologies for community media in rural areas. It aims to develop telecommunication and
media solutions that give a greater voice to people at the grassroots, and enable closer engagement
between people and larger institutions in the development sector including governments, NGOs and
corporate.
It began its operations in 2009, and runs a product under their flagship which is a radio automation
called GRINS (Gramin Radio Inter-Networking Systems). It is also expanding its offerings to video and
content distribution systems, to enable distributed applications for agriculture, healthcare and
education in rural areas.

Narayana Hrudayalaya

A vision of Dr. Devi Shetty, Narayana Hrudayalaya is founded by one of the India's oldest construction
company "Shankar Narayana Construction Company" in 2001. Located in the city of Bangalore, it is
one of the world's largest pediatric heart hospitals and has created a record of performing nearly
15,000 surgeries on patients from 25 foreign countries.
It is currently working to extend its clinical expertise to cancer with the launch of Biocon, a 1,400-bed
facility providing treatment for head-and-neck, breast and cervical cancers. Narayana Hrudayalaya
started Tele-medicine in 2002 to cater mainly to the rural populace in the country.

Godrej Group

Godrej brought a revolution in the rural India by introducing its ChotuKool. What Nano is to
automobiles, ChotuKool is to refrigerator industry. Established in 1897 by Ardeshir Godrej, who was a
lawyer-turned-locksmith, today it has seven major companies with interests in real estate, FMCG,
industrial engineering, appliances, furniture, security and agri care. They have presence in more than
60 countries and ensures the service excellence that one can count on.
Godrej also has a philanthropic arm that has built schools, dispensaries and a residential complex for
their employees, and the trust established by the company still invests in education, healthcare and
upliftment of the underprivileged.

FabIndia

A platform to bring in the products that are made from traditional techniques, skills and hand-based
process to the world's growing urban middle class. FabIndia connects more than 40,000 craft-based
rural producers to modern urban markets, thereby creating a base for skilled, sustainable and
employment and preserving India's traditional handicrafts in the process.
Through its website and 136 retail stores, it sells clothing and products for the home, all of which are
sourced from villages across India. FabIndia was established in 1960 by John Bissell, an American

working for the Ford Foundation. FabIndia established "The FabIndia School" in 1992 in Pali district of
Rajasthan, which is a co-educational, senior secondary school with more than 600 students including
40percent girls who are provided with a subsidized tuition fees and offers them scholarships.
Digital Green

Dedicated to improving the social, economic and environmental sustainability of small farmer
livelihood, Digital Green aims to raise the livelihoods of smallholder farmers across the developing
world through the targeted production and dissemination of agricultural information through
participatory video and mediated instruction through grassroots-level partnerships.
The company lets the villagers select the film themselves demonstrating new agricultural techniques
and after checking for accuracy, it screens them for the farmers using handheld projectors.

Tata

Tata made the dream come true for lot of Indians by launching the rupee one lakh car "NANO". With
NANO, Tata brought the recognition for India as
a technology leader and not a mere low-cost hub known for cheap labour. Tata Group was laid in 1868
by Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata. Today, Tata group comprises over 90 operating companies in seven
business sectors: communications and information technology, engineering, materials, services,
energy, consumer products and chemicals, and it has operations in more than 80 countries.
Courtesy
Siliconindia