The winners of the 9th Year Tata Social Enterprise Challenge 2020-21 (Tata SE Challenge), a joint initiative of the Tata group and Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC), were announced during the summit held on 15th May 2021. Bastar se Bazar Tak (Chattisgarh) was adjudged the Winner of the Challenge, winning a prize money of Rs. 2.5 lakhs. AC Biode (Cambridge) was declared the Runner Up, winning a prize money of Rs. 2 lakhs . Innaumation Medical Devices (Bangalore & Vizag) walked away with the Second Runner Up title and a prize money of Rs. 1.5 lakhs. This year a total of 3000+ applications flooded in, showcasing a substantial increase compared to previous years

Apart from the winning cheque, Bastar Se Bazar Tak also bagged the newly launched Tata SE Seed Corpus of Rs. 25 lakhs and a seed fund of Rs. 5 lakhs from IIM Calcutta Innovation Park. The startup endeavours to enhance livelihoods of tribal forest-dwelling farmers by reducing post-harvest losses and supplying high quality, unadulterated, processed forest produce to urban consumers at a fair price.

The winners of the Tata Social Enterprise Challenge for the year 2020-21 are:

Bastar se Bazar Tak, WINNER at the TSEC Grand Finale 2020-2021:

Bastar se Bazar addresses problem through post-harvest processing of NTFPs and providing high quality, unadulterated naturally pure healthy NTFP product available round the year to urban consumers at affordable price. By doing this our long-lived environmental & social outcomes are to save/processed NTFPs & will impact on 4000 smallholders’ farmer family.

AC Biode, the RUNNER UP at the TSEC Grand Finale 2020-2021:

AC Biode has created the world’s first standalone alternating current (AC) battery using what it calls a ‘Biode’, making it more efficient, safer, and about 30% more compact than the conventional batteries. Their universal AC technology improves any existing battery and brings lasting EV power and renewable energy storage in closer reach.

Innaumation Medical Devices Private Limited 2ND RUNNER UP at the TSEC Grand Finale 2020-2021:

Innaumation Medical Devices has developed the AUM voice prosthesis that helps in voice restoration for throat cancer patients at a very low cost. The main motto behind the company is to make science affordable, affable and accessible. This is how we have been able to create a low-cost speaking device for throat cancer patients who have lost their voice to surgical removal of voice box. The present invention created by Innaumation Medical Devices Pvt Ltd comprises of a voice prosthesis device, which is implanted in patients undergoing laryngectomy enabling the patient to speak after surgery. The core technologies we work on include speech and communication devices, computational biology, imaging devices.